The Divide

This weird thing happens when you move away from home. Things change.

Now I know, I've said this a million times since I moved to Illinois that things are different and relationships change but I've become increasingly aware lately that it's more than that.

I learned really quickly who my real friends were. My real friends are the ones that have listened to the recording of my homesickness on repeat for a year. They've answered the crying phone calls at 1am (okay 11pm west coast time), they've calmed me down when I'm in my head, they've texted and snap chatted relentlessly when I've fallen off the map. My friends are my rocks. They keep my feet on the ground. The people that I've realized are my real friends are the ones that make the effort when I just can't anymore. That make the effort to make sure we talk and see each other, that don't let the distance be the reason it dies.

It's really hard sometimes. It's hard seeing pictures of everyone together while I'm here. Don't get me wrong, I don't regret taking the opportunity here, but I didn't know how much I relied on my people to be okay until I didn't have them around me. It's like there's a part of me that's missing.... empty. Not that I'm unhappy, just empty.

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I hate feeling angry and agitated all the time. It feels like there is something about this whole situation that just has me perpetually on edge and quick to anger. Don't get me wrong, I've always had a temper. It's not something new to me but I'm not used to not being able to control it. I always feel like I am at the brim, fuming and hoping I don't go over the edge. It's a weird feeling for me.

I feel like I've lost, or am losing, my connections to my friends back home. Most of my friends here in Illinois are gone, and most of the people that are here aren't people that I am close to or that I'd prefer to not spend time with. I feel like I'm floating, in purgatory, like I'm in this place where I'm easy to forget. Out of sight out of mind I guess.

I'm sure this isn't true but it's 100% how it's felt lately. Everyday I wish I could come home. Come back home. Come back to my life. Come back to where things and people made sense. I just feel like I'm in a perpetual state of drowning. I can see the surface, I can see the sun, but I can't break through and I can't breathe and no one can hear my screams. I miss the way my life used to be. I hate that I am in a constant state of struggle and I hate feeling like I am repeating the same "woe-is-me" but I don't feel like I have any way to process and I'm just slowly falling further and further down the rabbit hole.

I can feel people getting more distant and I'm digging my nails in trying not to lose them. Trying not to lose the bit of security I feel like I have. Trying to maintain my connections to the people at home that have made me feel normal. I don't feel so normal anymore. I'm starting to wonder if I am one of those people that keep at a distance. Like, I'm feeling like maybe I'm doomed to be someone that people use as someone of convenience but rarely as someone substantial. Maybe those are the people I'm attracted to, the people I try to be close to.

It's hard feeling sometimes like people have their close friends, and then they have me when they have no one else. This summer has felt so empty because the people that I do spend time with, the few that I hang out with regularly, are all gone and for the first time in a long time I feel alone yet surrounded by other people.

I've been struggling to leave my house. I go to work and come home. Then I don't leave again. Rinse and Repeat. I don't like doing things on my own because I was once told that only those that have no one is forced to do things on their own. I don't wanna hit that point. A year later and I think there are days that I am still trying to figure out where I belong...