A premature, immature mid-life crisis

*I would have written this post in third person but I write more naturally in first person. That doesn't mean that everything is ACTUALLY related to my own life. It is based on personal experience but contains several fictional elements too.

When I was little and the other kids wouldn't let me play with them, making me feel like there was something wrong or inferior about me, I retreated into a shell whose walls have still not been completely demolished. When they laughed at me, picked on me, bullied me, all I wanted was to be left alone.

Growing up, when I realized how people ogled at me on the street or at the mall or anywhere at all, and my family made it worse by pointing out this obvious fact to me, I wished I could disappear into nothingness. All I wanted was to be left alone.

While attending loud, boring family get togethers where my Mother would force me to talk to cousins I had nothing in common with yet was constantly compared against, and when irritating little kids would ask me irritating albeit innocent questions, all I wanted was to be left alone.

At college, when I found my environment strange and the people stranger, and then faced rejection from the first person I truly loved and worked up the courage to confess to, I retreated into my old shell again, in a whole new way. All I wanted was to be left alone.

When the online social networking fad caught on and I received at least five random friend requests every week from weird boys who spoke weird English, all I wanted was to be left alone.

When friends ask me why I seem upset from the inside or why I never ever get angry or express any negative emotions, I shrug and smile, a little wryly. I'm not the talk-about-your-problems type; I prefer to just be left alone.

And yet, being alone isn't all that great either:

Looking at pictures of old friends' exciting new lives; the places they go to, the adventures they have, the moments they relish, I long to have the same liberties - to do what I want when I want however I want. I long to have company that will join me in cutting loose and going wild, just for the thrill of it.

Seeing other people's relationship statuses regularly turn from single to 'in a relationship' on Facebook, I wonder when it will finally be my turn to do the same. I wonder whether things will be so bad that I'll one day end up changing it directly to 'married.'

Feeling awkward when someone I'm with suddenly smiles when their cell phone beeps a message from their better half, I yearn to experience THAT feeling of knowing that you're missed, that you're on that special someone's mind, all the time.

Noticing guy friends admire random pretty girls at the mall or the movies, I look around me to see if anyone's noticing me too. No, I am invisible, it seems. Isn't that what I'd always wanted as a child? Then why doesn't it make me happy now? Why does it cause a dull ache that never quite goes away?

Overhearing a younger sister whisper and giggle into her cell phone late in the night, I feel hot tears of shame and embarrassment well up in my eyes, all of their own accord. I am supposed to be the older one, yet SHE is the one who knows all about what it's like to be kissed and touched and desired. I feel jealous and angry and let down, and then guilty when I realize that it is somewhat juvenile of me.

Staying signed into my chat messenger all day and several hours into the night, I yearn for a conversation window to pop up, for someone to take time out of their busyness and let me know that I matter. Why must I always be the one putting in the effort, to keep friendships going?

Comforting a friend who's been through a bad breakup, I wish to feel their pain too; to have the chance to learn from relationships, grow from them, even if it hurts.

Reading the stuff he writes for his ex and comparing it to the smooth, mindless flirtations he uses on me, I feel stupid for ever meeting him, trusting him, dreaming of him, and angry for knowing that I am just a passing limerick of his present, a 'time pass', with no place in his future.

Numbed by how life has come to a standstill in just my early twenties, I stray down a path I was once sure I would never turn to: the cigarettes and booze give me respite, a much-needed high, and the dramatic plans of running away or ending it all, give vent to my frustrations.

Inside, I feel myself slipping out of control, going insane, bit by bit. All because I so don't want to be left alone anymore, not one moment longer.

I don't want to run anymore, like I have all my life, I don't want to hide. I want to put myself out there and let life wash over me, knock the very 'life' out of me.

I want out from the all-consuming sense of emptiness and dread and pointlessness that plagues me, day in, day out. I think of that one time that this depressing feeling had almost vanished and how happy I'd been to think that things were about to change - for the better - and I smile, a little sadly, at my own naivety. '

'Move on', people say. 'Be happy.' The words are simple yet their implications so complex. How does one move on from awful experiences that have torn one up from inside? Where do we find the strength to put on a brave face and take on the world when all we really want to do is curl up into a ball and wail like a newborn? How do we accept that people change, that their personalities mutate inexplicably, irreversibly? How do we detach ourselves from people who mean the world to us even when they don't care much about us?

A close friend posted on her Facebook status: "I believe that everything happens for a reason. People change so that you can learn to let go, things go wrong so that you appreciate them when they're right, you believe in lies so you eventually learn to trust no one but yourself, and sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together." It is an inspiring thought, but difficult to accept and imbibe in life, like all inspiring thoughts tend to be. Especially when you're down and low and feel like everything around you is a pretense, a facade, a never-ending circus that has long ceased to be amusing or entertaining.

When life stretches ahead of me as one long, bleak, vision of uncertain terrain, all I really want - for the first time in my life - is not to be left alone. All I really want is someone to help me along the difficult path, to fill the journey with color, every color of the rainbow: Red for love, and yellow for friendship, and pink for freshness, and blue for calm, and purple for splendor and orange for zest and green for fun. All I really want is someone who brings every color together simultaneously, to form the glaring yet peaceful beauty of stark, brilliant, pristine white.

'Desperate', you may call me. And I shall totally agree, seeing nothing wrong with it. For all I want is not to be left alone.