Feeling Vacant...

Some days I feel as if happiness will always have a vacancy in my life. That I am destined to struggle every day in my pursuit to live beyond necessity.

I am in Chicago. In theory, I am "living the dream". But most of the time it doesn't feel like it. An underlying layer of depression plagues my existence. Even though, right now, I wouldn't necessarily say I'm "depressed". My body seems to be telling me otherwise.

This week I've found myself wishing I could be the girl I knew in high school. Naive and head strong. Unwilling to believe that dreams were impossible. I may not have let all of my success in, but at least I believed it was possible. I didn't know any better. Any scars I had were surface wounds, only to become deep when adolescent life ended.

I want to embrace the life I'm living. It's why I came here. Yet, it's so hard to do. An intense paradox. Why is that living life gets int the way of really living? Every time I talk to some people who are close to me I feel like I have to give a report about this fabulous life I'm living. When I don't feel I can report favorably, I don't call. I'm tempted to lie. To create a facade that everything is fine because it's not acceptable if it isn't.

I've always struggled to "get out there" and make friends. I'm good at being alone. Social anxiety is too good of a friend to me. I don't want to make excuses or make things more complicated than they are, but what if they are complicated? At least for me, it's not that simple. Why isn't that ok? Even if I give myself permission, it seems wrong to acknowledge my greatest flaws.

Rip off the band-aid. Take the plunge. Go big or go home. So much of the pain I've experienced in my life, I've blamed myself for. The results were because of my own depth, mistakes, who I am as a person. I care too much, so when I get hurt it's bigger than it may be for other people. So it's not the person's fault who hurt me that I'm damaged; it is my own.

I know I am my own form of dramatic. That I future trip and psyche myself out. I look at people from my past. People with whom I dreamed about life in the future. Now, they're all in places I'd thought I'd be. And somehow, I feel like I've always known that it would be that way. Like it's no surprise. Because that's just how it works for me. I can handle not always getting a happy ending, so that's the story I live.

*** 
I wrote this at 2:30 am the other night when I couldn't sleep. I wasn't going to post it but after reading my friend Megan's blog I thought that maybe somebody else out there would be able to relate and know that they're not alone. While this post is rather depressing and raw, it's how I felt and I think honesty is what gets you somewhere in this life.