What do I have to offer?

I continue to struggle. At my job, as a community member, as a boyfriend, as a son, a brother, a friend. Coming here--picking myself up and suddenly planting myself across the country with no one  and nothing familiar for thousands of miles--I never realized it would be hard. Somehow, I believed in myself. My strengths, my skills, my abilities, myself as a whole. Life, for the first time in many years, was very, very good before I left for California. I had never been so fulfilled, felt so loved, felt so confident in myself. I had purpose, I was great at school, I had a job I loved, some friends, a  brand new relationship, and I felt more confident and more full of life than I've ever been. Ever.

I'm told I was outgoing as a child, lively, gregarious, more than my older brother or sister. And then it disappeared. I got sick and anything that made me anything was gone. I couldn't live a life at all--I've floated through "friendships" most of my life. Different groups who I never felt connected to. Not really. I mean, I tried. I've put my whole self into so many different groups of people but I've almost never felt like I succeeded in making those connections I wanted. After a while when it continues not to stick you begin to feel unwanted. I have a handful of people who I can say I feel very close to--that I have made that sort of connection with. I think a lot about who from Cabrini I would still see if I were in the area--who I'll still see when I move back home next year. I don't know who would be on that list. Even last year at the height of my upward journey these last few years I was plagued by these thoughts--that inability to connect. It's creeping back up again now--I'll connect this in a few minutes. Anyway. The point I was originally trying to make is that last year I thought I had recaptured that spirit of who I "used to be." That I had overcome these challenges, that I wasn't so shy, that I had a lot to offer people, talents, gifts, whatever you want to call them.

And then I came here.

I don't know what I have to offer. I am quite honestly incapable of seeing what I had last year. It's all left me so quickly. I'm trying to recapture it, scramble to put the pieces back together. I feel like I've just failed in every aspect of this experience so far. I don't know how to talk to people. I don't know how to connect with anyone. I don't know how to bring myself to my job or into my community.

And it terrifies me. What if I never reach that point? I know who I am, and right now I am not that person. I am not happy, I am not funny, I am not lively or optimistic or driven. I don't know what I bring to my community; I feel like a burden more than anything else. I don't know how to talk to anyone in the house, at my work--staff or student. Maybe I just need more time than everyone else. But it's heartbreaking and exhausting to have hit this wall so suddenly. To be the only one who is apparently struggling so much. I was on top of the world and suddenly I've fallen so far--I feel the way I did when I started college. I can't deal with this self-doubt and fear. I don't know what it stems from--maybe it's what I talked about earlier. The fact that I've never felt like I had a place, a group that really accepted me--not for many years, at least. I've struggled so long for that and I don't know that I ever really found it at Cabrini. And it's been such a continual theme in my life that I guess I've learned to think it has to be something about me.

See, I'm falling into old habits. This negative thinking. It's a trap that is just self-fulfilling and self-sustaining. I know the things I'm saying aren't even true--I've got a group of friends at home. A best friend. I've got a fantastic girlfriend, a caring family. And yet.....did I ever have that "group" of friends at school that ever involved me in plans? Did anyone ever take me into consideration? Do I have that little to offer?

Or was I simply failing in communicating my need for that?

I think it must be the latter because I continue to struggle with it. I can't break myself out of my own head at work, at the house. I see opportunities and shy away from them. Why do I do that? What is wrong with me? Do I fear getting hurt? Do I fear that I have nothing to give them? Nothing anyone has to benefit from what I have to say?

Maybe.

I don't know. I don't know why I'm so unhappy. I don't know why I have suddenly reverted back to this person I was who is incapable of simple human interaction. It's negatively effecting a lot of things. I know it is. I could be doing so much more at work. I could be forming friendships in my house that I see everyone else developing. I could be doing more to communicate with people at home: my parents, Sara, Matt, Kevin, Bridget, even Jack. People at Cabrini.

I am outside of all of this. Like I have so often felt in my life. I hate it.

I don't know how to overcome it. I know it's just a matter of "doing" but why is that so hard? What keeps me at that distance? What do I fear in connecting with others? I knew that would be a difficulty this year, but I didn't think it would be a debilitating one. I knew it was something I wanted to work through by living in community but I never expected it to leave me struggling at work, with my already existing relationships.

I have trouble waking up in the morning because I dread the amount of effort I have to exert every day to simply be among people. This is not healthy. There's probably something seriously wrong with it, actually. I need to change something. I just wish I knew how to do it, or that I weren't so afraid.

I don't know why I'm letting everyone see this. Maybe I just need to. Maybe it's just time everyone knew what my whole life has been. So often these debates rattle in my head.

I still think things will get better. I just don't want to waste any time. As long as a year sounds I'm realizing that it isn't all that long at all and I want to have made something from this experience, but at this rate there's a danger of  never reaching that point.

I've thought on several occassions what the point of being here at all is, but I think I would never be able to live with myself if I went home. Too many what-ifs...hopefully in the end it won't have been a wasted effort. I won't have wasted my time or this school's time or the time of my community mates and loved ones at home.

Something's got to change...and I need to change it. Somehow.