Welcome back, I guess

It's been a long time since I've written anything here.  A big part of that was knowing that people I knew were reading this.  I've always suffered from insecurity, and it felt too intrusive.  Too much like people would get to know the me that I hide from myself, running the risk of someone making me look at myself too closely.

Turns out I may have to get to know myself.  There are major changes coming over the next few months.  I don't want them, but I can't stop them.  I have to learn to cope.  I have to learn to live my own life.  I'm sad, and angry, but mostly just panicked.  And I can't keep everything to myself any longer.  It's too much.  I can't handle it alone, I need help.  My friends are there, even though I know I'm being terrible company.  I don't want to tax them too much, but I am so thankful for everyone that has listened without judging.  It made me realize I have more than I may have thought.

There is no such thing as fair.  That may be the first lesson I'm learning from what will become my new life.  I can't ignore past mistakes or the reality of the future.  I can look at it as a nightmare horrorshow, my life disintegrating before my eyes as I'm powerless to stop it.  Or I can look at it as an opportunity.  A chance to grow and change, maybe to be happy.  It is hard to see things that way.  So hard that panic keeps overwhelming me, leaving me almost crippled, unable to breathe, my heart beating wildly, blood pulsing so hard that I can hear it, a desperate surge singing through my ears.  But even from the bottom of a pit if you look up you can see the sky.  Maybe it is a very slim, very distant sky, a sky that will take weeks or months or years of scrambling to reach.  But it is there.  It has to be there.  I have to find it.  I have to believe that one day my hand will reach the edge of the pit, and that I'll be strong enough to lift my head back into the light and air.  That I'll be able to come back to the world.

So I'm going to try to open up a bit.  To not be so guarded, to not be afraid to know myself or to let others know me.  For so long I feel like I've been hiding, like I was afraid to connect with other people.  It's hard to be alone amongst your friends, to hide your thoughts and feelings from everyone.  I'm having trouble still; being this honest is hard for me.  I don't want to get into the gory details just yet, but I may.  No one has to read this, but I'm afraid I may have to write it.