People are complicated. I’m so much better at simply not dealing with those complications; being selfish and making my own rules. I’ve made it my pattern over the last two years (it may seem an extreme reaction, to shut yourself out from so much you once believed in so deeply, but I suppose the right bruises on any heart will surprise you in their impact). Since moving to SoVA, I’ve found that more difficult. The friends I’ve made here… Girls I can sit around and gossip with or go to when I need a shoulder, co-workers who actually care, people who are just as obsessive and crazy as I am… They make it hard. Staring genuine connection in the face, it is much more difficult to simply shut that feeling off. I’m still learning what it means to stay in one place, to stop moving so furiously for once, and the people here have made that lesson an important one.

If I’m honest, I find myself wanting people to want me around, despite my belief that those connections are only bad for us. I don’t think that good feelings end well, and the adage that ‘everything ends anyway’ is just realism, not fatalism, in my philosophy.

So, where is this going? I find myself questioning more and more, these days, which side of this line I fall on. Do I want to believe or not? Is my downright-cold-at-times personality (aka, all the emotional armor I’ve polished and fitted over the years) redeemable? I think that’s the question we all concern ourselves with, especially during this ridiculous time known as Limbo.

Are we redeemable? With all of our faults, all of the stupid stories and broken hearts we’ve littered our pasts with, is it possible we’re not injured beyond repair? Even if the hurt is of our own cause – if the armor we’ve used to keep others out only imprisons us – can we be saved from ourselves? And with all of this scarred tissue, is it fair of us to want to put that one someone else? Everyone has their own issues, why should we feel we can add our own to their burden? Isn’t it better just to suffer in silence? I fear being an inconvenience, and so I choose to not care, but can one make that choice forever? I’m starting to think – maybe in this move, maybe in my attempts to figure myself and other people out – maybe it’s better just to let go of the hurt and the armor and the feeling that you’re bothering someone else just by breathing. Maybe it’s better just to breathe.