Secret Garden

This is a phone entry; don't judge my grammar and punctuation too harshly.

So...I feel like whining about this. Tangents abound.
I don't mean to discount the friends I already have, because I love them, but they happen to be geographically far away...
And you can't expect friends that are so far away to remain as emotionally invested in your life as they did previously. That's not one bit fair. People have lives! Brilliant, wonderful lives that require vigorous...living! I guess I'm feeling jealous that I can't be part of those lives anymore, at least like I used to...but as I said, it's unfair of me, and I'm feverishly striving to overcome it.

I need new social spheres.

I'm tremendously picky about whom I allow to be close to me. I exist in a reality so convoluted by every single memory/color/modicum of stimuli, that I've worked incredibly hard to function in normal society. [Brace yourselves: Adventure Time reference] It's like I'm the Ice King with crazy old wizard-eyes. I still can't figure out how to eat a meal without absently smearing it all over my face. I recognize  that it's not disabling or heart-breaking, as one would see in one with OCD or more severe mental illness, but the truth is I'm incomplete. I think we all are, in our own way. I have an easy time recognizing this as my responsibility, but I have a really difficult time adjusting to the vulnerable position I frequently find myself in.
Interaction is hard. Acting appeals to me for a reason: I've crafted a friendly persona, full of charm and bravado, to present myself as an extrovert. Honestly, I'm not anywhere close to being this person. I'd prefer to run out of the room on most occasions. I have, on some. Contrary to how I may appear, I allow very few people to be close to me. These are people who either have known me many years and have a deep understanding of my more confounding traits, or those with whom I've shared a deep sense of connection, usually through some sort of life-altering event (which include theatrical productions). Or they're Jacob. Trust is paramount, especially since choices of friends in the past has lead to some pretty intense lows for me. And now, with the loss of 97% of my regular and cherished social interaction due to our move, I feel incredibly...lost? Yeah, lost.

How do I even meet people?! And, for the record, I don't trust the Internet. I'm just old enough to have suspicion of all technology while compulsively using it. Plus, I'm not trying to find a soul mate or a sleazy hookup, so I'm pretty limited as far as sites and apps.

I did get a job as a preschool music teacher at a Gymboree Play/Learn. However, I'm tremendously apprehensive over building work friendships, given my previous experience in early childhood education...we'll just see how this pans out.



A long time ago, I found a picture in an old literature textbook that essentially describes my inner-sanctum. It's hard to describe, really. It's presumably set somewhere in Great Britain (Wales, if I could choose). It's a slow-moving brook, littered with smooth stones, surrounded by a deep thicket of trees, bushes, and ivy, which create a tunnel. On one side, a decaying stone wall flanks the pastoral scene, allowing small rays of light in through a crumbling gate. Ivy proliferates. It's dark and gothic, a little romantic, and channels the Secret Garden a bit, although I always found Mary Lennox to be too bitchy for me to appreciate. It's probably imaginary, like an Albert Bierstadt painting, but I think that's where I'd like my soul to end up.  Anyway, I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm trying to find another soul to invite into my secret ivy grotto, somebody that won't disrupt the flow of the brook it or trample the ivy.

This is all getting really introspective, and really self-involved; I can't continue on this topic. Partly because it's hard writing about vulnerability and loneliness, partly because the dog just farted in my face and I'm utterly disgusted.