So that’s it then. The case has been solved. Every time I needed someone to stand by me, hold my hand, sit with me and listen. Tell me that Everything is Going to be Okay. No one was ever there. It started young, with my family. The family who was never there. I learned that when I had a problem, I bottled it away. I could cry, I could curl up in my blankets and sleep my problems away. They just stayed with me, in my heart. I learned that no one really cares. Is this the truth? Maybe not so, but that’s all I ever knew. Best friends were always fleeting. I could never confide all my deepest secrets and feelings to one source. One simple support system. What I lacked in my social life, I made up for with my toys. I played, pretended, gave them names and personalities. They were my friends. And yet, I still didn’t have a support system. I lacked confidence, leadership, sociable skills. I can’t say I’ve made a single friend in middle school. I had one best friend, a family friend. I fondly remember the first time we met. They came over to our house; my brother and I being shy, hid in the bathroom. Eventually we met other kids from family friends, and we all became a “gang” in the Scooby-Doo sense. With all of us being military kids though, it was never meant to last. Eventually they left, eventually we grew apart. Eventually we stopped talking. At school, I hung with anyone who would let me. They weren’t friends, they were users; they used me as an emotional punchbag. They took their frustrations out on me, made me feel bad so that they could feel better. They offered just enough friendship to keep me around though. Treating my like their whipping boy. Much like a rotten child, offering food to some sick, stray dog. Beating the dog within an inch of his life, until he finally feeds him and strokes his fur, as if they were friends after all. That is all I knew from middle school. I viewed the punks, the rebels, the “weird” kids from afar. My biggest wish was that I could be part of that, that one of them would find me and bring me in to their world. I wanted friends that I could relate to. But it never happened… not until high school at least. I had my first taste of a true friendship there. One that wouldn’t go away, like most everything else in my life. Being in the honors program, I was stuck with the same people year after consecutive year. My best friend was Chris, my first advancement into trusting those of the same gender again. A guy who didn’t treat me like an inferior. Who talked to me about guy stuff and treated me like one of the guys. We had fun, I was happy again. Like everything else in my life though, it didn’t last. He moved, right after Sophomore year. I was alone again. On my own. Loner League: even that didn’t last. Whenever I made friends, when I found people to trust— real relationships, it ended abruptly. College came and swept me away on a cramped aircraft. I guess I never learned how to keep people near. I only knew (know?) how to push them away. In college I jumped from one group of friend to the next, never really staying for too long in one spot. In college, the only girl I loved was lost. I flunked a class and nearly failed the rest because of the emotional traumas. I just lost one thing after another. I never had a support group, it was gone before I could use it. Every time someone tries to get close, I don’t let them. They’re just going to leave me again. They’re going to let me down. Throughout my whole life there hasn’t been many people who have earned my trust. Those who have left me sitting alone in the dark, to fend for myself.
In this new chapter of my life, I have made a Resolution. I will achieve my own Enlightenment. I will learn to Trust. I finally looked up, sitting in the gloom, only to find I wasn't alone in the dark anymore. I have friend surrounding me, supporting me and holding me up. I want to keep these people around, I want to give back what they give me. I want to Evolve. I'm not that little boy anymore. My path is not so cold, alone, and frightening any longer.
