Sæglópur

Loneliness is not usually something that affects me. I’m beginning to feel its effects lately; I think the reason behind it is because I’m realizing that my definition of “alone” has been incorrect for a long time now. It’s a problem that I am writing this at 3:00 a.m. because I will probably regret it later; this is a topic I’m not too thrilled to write about, but it’s something I have to get out.

Most of my life has been about building walls. I got picked on as a kid, for reasons that I never really understood, and to fix it, I first tried beating up the bullies. I decked a kid in the third grade (Brandon something was his name, a real jerk, this kid). Unfortunately, he had a lot of 5th grader friends who made me pretty miserable. So, realizing I couldn’t kick their asses, I decided I better be smarter than them. So I learned big words, read big books, gained the favor of my teachers, and then I decided I was just better than these hoodlums, and the rest of my early academic career I simply ignored them.

I carried that grade-school foundation with me into high school. I carried a grudge against people because I assumed that even if they acted like they liked me…they probably didn’t. So, I learned how to put walls up, protect my feelings, cut off the emotions, and pretty much ignore everything around me. I pretty much died inside. None of my friendships were really real, they were flimsy, shallow, and trifling relationships. These people simply did not know me. High school was not a good time for me. Granted, I did a pretty good job making everything seem like it was great on the exterior, but internally, there was really nothing going on. It’s weird though, I really didn’t care about not having anybody close to me; in fact, I pretty much enjoyed my space. When people got too close, I pushed them back, sometimes gently, and sometimes I shoved. People learned their place, and kept their conversations to small talk; never did anything go deeper than, “how was your weekend.” I was completely closed off, and thus, I was protected.

Now I am a junior in college and things are beginning to change. The me that existed in high school is almost completely gone. One of my professors says that these two years of college have been an “age of deconstruction” for me; I’ve been deconstructing all of the things that I’ve been taught that I simply accepted without question. With this questioning, the walls that I’ve had built up have been slowly coming down. Now that the walls are falling, I’m not protected anymore. Suddenly I feel really alone. It’s not that there’s no one physically around…I am surrounded by people all the time. The problem is, I never learned how to let people into my life; even though I don’t want to, I’ve kept everyone at a great distance.

I realized that this is why I have always been so skeptical of marriage. I never thought that I would ever want to get married, but I didn’t really know why I felt that way. I realize now that it is because I have intimacy problems. I am afraid of marriage because marriage means letting another person see the real me…quite honestly, I would be afraid that my wife wouldn’t like the real me very much. I’m starting to get over those feelings, and I’m beginning to think that someday I do want to be married, and I do want to have a family; I really do want that intimacy in my life, I just need to figure out this whole “opening up” thing.

So, I just want to apologize to you, whoever you are. If you feel like I didn’t let you in, if I didn’t share more of my life with you, if you felt like I didn’t care about you…I’m sorry, I just don’t know how these relationship things work. I’m still a little kid when it comes to that stuff. I’m still stuck in grade-school thinking that there’s no one out there who actually cares about who I really am inside. The thing is, I really want someone to care.

I’m feeling a bit like I’m sæglópur (“lost at sea”)…maybe one day, someone will find me.

~ by ascrawford on May 4, 2008.