A few years at least

I couldn't pin it down exactly. Maybe if I reread some of my old journal entries I could give you a rough estimate. I feel emotions. I can be pretty happy. What I feel more so than anything is loneliness. But I live alone. People expect you to be lonely when you live alone. When I tell fellow college students that I live alone, they usually seem a bit shocked. I am envious of people who have fun relationships with their roommates, almost like they're best friends who've always known each other. Right now I can't think of anyone else, any of my facebook friends or twitter friends, who live alone. I hate living alone.
I lived in a dorm room for my first two years of school, before I transferred to here. I didn't care much for the company of my roommates, so I spent most of my time with the girls next door, talking about celebrities or complaining about school, talking about places we'd rather be. Those girls were the only thing that kept me sane during my time there. If it hadn't been for them, I probably would have transferred out much sooner. I also had some twisted drama with a boy there, which ultimately left me exhausted and numb. I felt stupid. I felt impotent. I felt ugly. I felt old. I felt like I was falling apart. And even after I transferred, the recovery was slow. Spending so much time alone interferes with my sense of time. Time evaporates at a disgusting rate. I wonder maybe if it's because I'm forced to do monotonous maintenance-oriented tasks more so than I would if I lived with another person that I seem to have less time. But more than any specific reason, I think that it's simply unnatural to be alone on a regular basis. Our brains crave social interaction. I've shared my thoughts about this with some of my friends/acquaintances. Of course, they suggest that I should join a club or two. Not a bad idea. (I know how contrary this is going to sound.) But I just don't feel like it. Putting myself out there and ...all that. With the smiling and the introductions, and deciding how I want to present myself...and caring what a new group's perception of me, while not even knowing if I should care what their perception of me is...

If you've read this far, you're a fabulous person. Definitely a people person, you are. Congratulations. Really, some would have already given up.

The point of this entry is that I haven't really been happy about being me for a long time, a good chunk of my life now. I've spent the last 7 years experimenting with different levels of angst, depression, and burn-out. And I don't really know how to get out of it. It's just a matter of pulling my entire self up at once... I mean, it isn't as if I'm not TRYING. I am definitely trying. I just feel alone in it. Like there's no one who really understands how weak I feel. Certainly I know someone who could relate to feeling like they don't have control of their life anymore, though I'm not sure I should characterize what I'm feeling as "out of control." (Psychiatrists love that shit.) I feel like no one really remembers a version of me that was stable and reliable. It really puzzles me when someone describes me... and it's obvious that their impression of me is weak, impertinent, bitchy, narcissistic, unstable, flamboyant, and...dumb. People think I'm dumb.  Just typing that makes my chest tighten up. I have done some really dumb things, some in the pursuit of "knowing."And there's not exactly an abundance of evidence that would support the contrary.
People think I'm incapable. I'm not even the third place ribbon. I'm like the "Good job!" ribbon. The last time I got a "Good job!" ribbon was in the 4th grade at a Cub Scouts function. I threw it in the trash on the way out. One of the moms picked it out and handed it to my dad. I told him that she had a lot of nerve, and he agreed. We one first place the next year.