Confessions of an exile.

"They make it look so easy... connecting with another human being. It's like no one told them it's the hardest thing in the world."

True connections. Something I thought I had somewhere else... but it was just a big stupid lie. Some bonds which I perceived as unshakable, or some thought to be strong - that are no longer. And then I think to myself... how can you blame them, right? That a person is only useful to another when you're physically in their presence? Outside of that, there's no purpose for me. Purposeless. Did anyone ever really care for anything that came out of my mouth? It feels like everything I said during that two year period is buried in a heavy fog.
Everything had to be so complicated. So complicated, that I'd just shack myself up alone, the majority of the time... just unable to go out and connect. Eventually, the way time crawled as I laid, many of times, huddled up in my bed, upset, in my head, alone, confused... the whiskey started voluntarily slipping down my throat, and there was nothing I could do about it. There was no one, no one, that could connect with the my extreme level of disconnect, so I had to shut it up.
What began so pleasant, a new life in a new town, where everyone just seemed so warm and welcoming it felt as if I got to begin anew and really make some true, concrete connections post-cataclysmic college crap, I wasn't prepared for fuck arounds, mindgames, people doing things so appalling to my ethical standards (which obviously, we all have different perspectives) while I tried to keep ignoring it - I found myself converting, beginning to make the same idiotic mistakes. And I made more. Then, after I had attempted (probably my own fucked up head of a way, yet at times in my own plain innocent way) to get closer with others, got ceremoniously shut down in difficult, soul crushing ways. What was so wrong with me, I pondered, when it seemed everyone I'd witnessed in most ways - were just as fucked up and damaged as I was? Why wasn't I allowed to feel the comfort of the ones I thought I could truly connect with? Hence, the retaliations began. What sober, calm Karyn would never conceive, drunk Karyn was willing to say, to anyone, to 'get back' at them. The hurt, pissed off person that was too messed up to even feel comfortable to connect with anyone just wanted to inflict pain on anything that felt stabbing - so for example, if I was aware of a friend that was in some way fucked over by someone else I knew, naturally I wanted to put in my two cents. And if anyone fucked with me, it was a shitfest. One night at a local bar, I put on a shitshow after my purse was taken from the bar stool. Going back to it at the end of the night and discovering the disappearance, drunk as a skunk, I erupted into a feverish spectacle... and didn't remember it. Feeling instinctively awful the next day waking up, I asked my friend Matt what had happened. What was said make me feel like the biggest jerk in the world. He told me to apologize to the bartender, who was always wonderful to me, and I did... later that day.
What no one could understand was, I couldn't give it up. Mystery diagnosis leg pain required the booze. There wasn't anything else that was helping me - for after it initially rose into a situation, I feverishly told anyone who would listen what was wrong... but then that made me an annoyance, and was shot down because my pain sucked the fun out of everything. Alcohol made me shut up about it, squeezed the lid on tight. But my demon would find easy passage after the liquids were ingested, it flooded the dam and burst - lips would open - daggers would fly, and pierce.
After that, it was keep to myself, keep everything in, don't hurt anyone, don't even deal with another, the end. Of the friends who stuck by me despite it all, they knew who I really was, what I really stood for, how harmless I was. I miss them.... especially the ones who seem so stuck, alone as well, despite the abundance of 'friends' milling around them in that small town... but I do feel for many of the others, that are too damaged to let anyone else in. Just like me... until now.
I'm not lying when I say that Florida, as 'put down' and 'made fun of' as the notion of the idea of moving, of all places, here, was to the ones in that small town... has been the best thing that could have ever happened to me. My mom and I, for the most part, had a nice mostly peaceful reunion for a few months while we pinned down the mystery and now my leg feels better every week. Our tectonic shift at the end will subside, and I for one believe we will be okay, because sometimes you have to weather a storm, but you pick yourself up, and you tell that other person sorry. A real, honest to god, apology. Which is something no one knows how to do anymore. They're justified in their actions, they do nothing wrong. But you know what? That's how you lose your connections. I would know, because I've done it. Arrogance runs rampant in the 21st century, and despite how you think you REALLY feel? You're wrong. and you have to own up to it.
Picking up and leaving everything you convinced yourself to think was you, having to deal with yourself for a few months as you get back on your feet, the realization does eventually hit: it wasn't. While there's no easy way to just go make a solid connection down here, sometimes fate brings in a helping hand and brings in someone who will weather your insecurities and reassure you that you are something wonderful to be cherished, as much as you don't want to believe that about yourself anymore. I'm making a close connection. No matter how difficult it may be, dealing with idiosyncrasies that are very much like your own (and the last thing you'd ever want to do is admit it) it just keeps getting better. It's finally happening, and it feels really nice.