after a copper hook and great conversation with good people and two professors

When those closest to me are hurting, I actually find it hard for me to respond. I don't know what to do to be comforting. There are times when all they need is someone to hold them and listen to them, but those times are rare, unfortunately.

I don't know how I got to be that way. I stand off to the side, unsure of what I should do. It's hard to know if people just want comfort or if they want the truth, and every time I try to guess and help them in whatever way I think is best, I get shunned. And so, I'm holed up in my room, or standing in the stairwell, listening to their weeping.

Maybe it's because I tend to want solitude in my own times of grieving, or unbearable pain. I shut myself out. I automatically go to my room, flop down face first onto my bed, and cry into my pillow, because then I won't be a burden to everyone else. That's how I see it, at least.

If I'm going to be playing psychiatrist (I fucking hate psychiatrists, by the way) with myself, it could be because during the most emotional times of my young life, I felt like I couldn't really turn to anyone. I didn't want to turn to my mother, because she was hurting and had enough troubles of her own. I couldn't turn to my father, because I couldn't stand to see him crying, the weight of all his guilt pressing down hard on his shoulders. And I certainly couldn't unload on my brother, because he was going through the same thing, and at the same time, how could he understand my own angst, being younger than I was? I didn't turn to any other family members, because crying over the phone would just warrant unwanted attention from my mother, and all of my friends had either not gone through the same situation and wouldn't understand, or had gone through the same things and were already way over them.

Entering my college years, and letting my true self out a little bit at a time over the past five years, has been hard and easy at the same time. I've become better at not sweeping all the dirt under the rug, but for all my effort, I'm still a lazy cleaner. (Trust me--you don't want to see my room; although I did pick up all the clothes....) There is a lot that I still keep inside, under the rug; the difference is that these days, it's only a little at a time.

Michael was right--there is still something inside me that I don't want to let out. Maybe a couple of somethings.

Even now, as I know that my roommate and one of my best friends is across the small hallway, in her room, probably trying to recover from a day that just didn't go her way...for all my bravado and my repeated threats to "kick his balls all the way up to his throat," I don't know what she needs from me. And so, I hover. Or ignore.

Because, and this is my excuse, sometimes you have to deal with yourself in your darkest moments before you deal with others.