Alone Among the Outcast

I’m sore today and maybe that’s making me a little sad.

I avoided writing so long that I wound up having to find things to do around the house all day (my computer was confiscated until I wrote a blog post today). Now, it’s 7 o’clock and I’ve finally surrendered for the sake of getting my computer back for at least part of the evening.

A friend of mine posted something on Facebook about a follower of his having a particularly racy Tumblr in a vein which was particularly appealing to my friend. He didn’t share the name of the Tumblr so I went hunting on my phone to see if I could find anything I thought might have been appealing to him (losing my computer has serious consequences for how I spend my time!)

I don’t think I found whichever Tumblr he was referencing. But I did find an awful lot of “not like me” even when I searched terms that are, ostensibly, my categories.

I spent an hour wading through “not like me” under my labels before I finally gave up and acknowledged the darkness that had crept into my spirit during my searching. My comfortable home felt off. My loving partners seemed distant. My lighter spirits of the past two weeks felt weighted and cold.

I sat on the couch, unable to rouse interest to even watch TV. I thought about working on the project I’ve been doing online, but I can’t work on it until I’ve written. The thought of writing made me feel even more lost and alone.

I’ve been talking about writing in therapy, trying to work through my neuroses so I can actually write regularly without these terrible emotional barriers that I have to climb every time I sit down at the keyboard.

We’ve talked about my perfectionism and procrastination – both avoidance and anxiety-driven. We’ve talked about the critical voice in my head that is a constant scraping against my nerves every word I write. We’ve talked about how to notice, to detach, to walk away when those anxieties and criticisms creep into my consciousness.

But we don’t talk about the loneliness.

I haven’t identified it. Haven’t brought it into my therapy.

Today I felt it and remembered that woven in with the anxiety and the criticism is a deep and aching loneliness when I write. The loneliness that I can’t share this. That I can’t talk about it on Facebook and share it with my friends and show it to my family and collect followers and build friendships…

Even among the outcast, the censored of Tumblr, I am dissimilar. Even with my labels and in the subculture that weaves its own normalcy into protected spaces where people like, but not like, me can be themselves. Share experiences. Feel seen and validated. I am still an outsider.

I cringed at everything Tumblr offered. So painfully, even repugnantly, unlike me.

I told myself not to judge. To live and let live. That they’re just different from me.

But they’re not different from everyone.

I am.

I don’t even have the energy to explain why and how. It is just a painful, aching, profound knowledge. The primal recognition of assonance. Of “not like me” even with those who should be closest to that goal.

And so I write here once in a while, and remember that I’m alone. I remember that I am different. I remember that I write into a silent void because I’m the only one here. My voice is the only one I can hear, echoing off the walls that separate me from the world.

And then, for as long as I can stand it, I stop. Stop writing. Stop thinking about it. Stop talking about it. Pretend that I fit somewhere, pretend that if I just don’t illuminate it, it won’t hurt.

But I always end up back here. Back in the empty room. Alone even among the outcast.