everything to me.

Now Playing: Hard to Say Goodbye (Naked) by Bryarly Bishop (I've got your melodies to keep me company, I've got your face on the screen, I've got these memories on my mind constantly, I've got myself resigned to waiting patiently)

Am I in too deep?

The reason why I am so introverted is that, in my experience, when I open up people start to think that I'm in too deep. I get attached to things, to people, too easily. I don't take a lot of things lightly.

If you ever see me at school, or in the library, or any place where I'm sitting by myself with my headphones and a vacant, dreamy expression, I am almost always reminiscing. I think the reason why I'm always 'in too deep' is that I remember absolutely everything, and my memory is very easily triggered by everyday objects.

I know I don't mean that much to that many people. And sometimes it's awkward, knowing that you're in far deeper than someone else. I can't give people the flippant, 'don't worry about it', black and white answers to difficult questions. It's not my fault that I can't explain away the way I feel.

They always say that you 'can't talk to boys about feelings'. Can you just imagine now many friendships, relationships, marriages etc have dissolved based on that stupid fallacy? It's a stereotype everyone hides behind. Boys and sex are so tied up with feelings it's absurd to say that you can't talk to them about how you're feeling.

There's still so much of me that nobody knows about, so much that I hide away, so much that I'm too afraid to show. It's easier to smile and say that I'm okay than to open up about everything that is raw and weird and vulnerable. It's easier to cry when nobody is looking. Even when I do open up it normally falls on deaf ears anyway. People don't want to hear what they don't want to hear.

Everyone thinks that I've done so much more than I've done. Everyone seems to forget that there is a first time for everything. In a way its endlessly frustrating, but it affords me a kind of emotional privacy that I find strangely comforting. I hate my insecurities, I hate them so much that I hate to see them in other people. Its why I've always been attracted to the bold and the reckless, the people who take what they want without asking. They have what I don't and I can't help but admire them. And I love what happens in the rush, in the heat of the moment, I love the excitement and fear of knowing that everything could so easily go so terribly wrong.

It's not too often that people think of me as an emotionally private person. I have a blog, for Christ's sake. If anyone's wearing their heart on their sleeve, it's me. But I'm only open because I'm tired of misunderstandings, I'm tired of the assumptions that come when you try and keep secrets. But in other ways I have...I have become private. I don't feel like anyone understands what I'm trying to say, so why bother explaining? Or it's not so much that they don't understand, but they don't listen. My stories are the same stories we all know, and I don't know why people think that I am somehow different, that I am without these stories, that I am not worthy of them. They treat me as if I don't have what everyone else has. Everyone asks me why I became so opinionated, so eager to let my voice be heard. The truth is, I'm not one of those people who can let other people speak for me - they always get it wrong. I have to speak just to remind people that I too am human.

Everything means so much to me. I can recall so many beautiful moments with perfect clarity. I have so many precious bittersweet memories in my heart and words can't describe how dear they are to me. But what is a milestone to me is next to nothing to everyone else. But if I let go as they do I have nothing; I would be empty. I have nothing else to fill my empty heart with.

It always baffles people why someone like me lets everyone else call the shots - why I can be so headstrong and stubborn and determined in some things and totally easygoing in others. I let other people call the shots because I don't want people to know how deep I'm in, how attached I am. I spend most of my time trying to make sure that the people closest to me don't know it. I've never understood how poeple work. I don't understand why people only want to be attached to people who keep running away from them. The second they stop and reconsider we suddenly become the ones who are running.

It's not like I'm not independent or incapable of self sufficiency. I work alone. I've managed my blog alone for four years and everything I've ever done worth talking about has been done single handedly. But this capacity for capability doesn't stop me from feeling isolated or insecure or lonely. I can explain to people the inner workings of my brain - everyone seems to want a piece of my mind. But its my heart that is harder to translate, especially to the people who mean everything to me.