outsider.

I've been an outsider for as long as I remember. My family moved around quite a bit growing up though it never dawned on me how unusual this all was until I started to feel broken at the age of 12. It's an early age to fight depression, but the tears came along with the insomnia and terrible feelings of loneliness. I now recognize the feelings of loss and abandonment that triggered a variety of episodes and feelings well into my 30's. 

I'm not sure I always was an introvert. I enjoyed playing with friends as a child and loved being a leader. I'm beginning to wonder if it's become a mode of protection. I've given a lot to friendships over the years. Taking friends on vacation, taking the time to visit them realizing then and now the lack of reciprocation on their part. I have fought insecurity and feelings of being likable to the point where I now just retreat. I resist making friends, good friends, especially since my lifestyle hasn't changed much from that of my parents.

I wonder why I feel the need to bounce from place to place despite the fact I loathe to move. I keep searching for 'Home', that place to settle down. I recently left West Virginia, an although I didn't live in the same house the entire time I lived there I stayed for six years making it one of the longest places I have ever lived. I knew the whole time I wouldn't be there long, two years became four, four became six. Slowly but surely I became immersed in the community no matter how much I had fought it in the beginning. And when it came time to leave those feelings of loneliness and abandonment came flooding back.

I had a lot of distractions in the beginning. Starting a new job, selling our home, death of a loved one, and I've tried making adjustments but I feel myself crawling back in my shell. Now with the virus, lack of 'vices' and sheltering-in-place I feel empty.