Alone

Every once in a while, despite my best efforts to ignore and subdue, I realize that I am alone.  Whether or not I am physically alone is mostly irrelevant.  The fact is that I feel alone almost all the time - and have done for at least the last 24 years.  I have never felt that I fit in, that I am understood.  It has been proven time and again that I don't fit in, that I am not understood, that I just don't think like the masses.  And while independent thinking is, perhaps, a good trait to have, the result for me is that I feel very alone.

I'm sure there are a few people who would be surprised to hear this, for I have many friends.  I have 245 "friends" on Facebook and countless real life "friends" all over the world.  I am very close to some of these people and I can pour my heart out to them if I wish to (and sometimes I do).  But in the end, when the conversation is over, I go back to being alone.  It's a feeling I can never seem to shake, no matter how hard I try.

And I do try.  I don't like being alone or feeling alone and I don't think I should feel alone. Quite honestly, I'm tired of feeling this way.  I am married, I have a family, I go to school, I have an active social life and seem to have plenty of people around me often enough.  All of that should mean something; stand for something; provide me with something.  Sometimes it does, but never for long enough.  And sometimes I am successful at ignoring the loneliness, but never for long enough.