In My Fortress

She asked me what keeps people from me… I do. Sometimes purposefully and sometimes in spite of how much I need them. My anxiety keeps me from connecting, I honestly don’t know how. Maybe that’s a lie. I can connect when I’m really, really drunk. I can connect when I’m in my comfort zone with my friends. People I know already love me and know my flaws. It’s a fucking miracle I have the friends I do. It’s a miracle they put up with my strangeness and discomfort long enough to fall in love with me. I told her at my internship, I am the common denominator. I am the problem. What am I doing wrong? I think people are wary of me because they don’t know where they stand with me. I don’t show that I like them. I don’t know how to navigate this triple role of coworker, intern and friend. So I sit there, sullen, quiet, playing chess on my phone, waiting for 5:30. They laugh together, snicker about their private jokes, talk about their lives. I am a stranger in their universe. Just passing through. Gone in the spring. Parts of me feel like it’s not even worth the effort to try to connect. Part of me knows that I just don’t know how. Deep caves in my mind hold the secret to why I’m this way, how I can fix things. I desperately, achingly, want to allow people into my world, but I’m not sure how to do that.  I am deeply saddened, living in a city so full of life and people, and I can’t seem to engage with them. I’m tired of feeling on the outside of this world. Often that weariness translates into deep depression. Unease with my self, my body, my soul. Today it seems equally painful but I somehow haven’t lost hope. All I can do is grow and learn and TRY. Stop self medicating. Stop burrowing into myself and disappearing. Try to develop the skills my childhood never allowed to grow. I believe that one day I won’t have to fight anymore. One day the failings of my parents won’t matter. One day I will have no more things to make excuses or provide explanations for. One day I will be whole and happy. I will be a complete picture of me. I will be realized. Engaged. Connected. One day.