Box It Up, Ship It Out

Today I packed up all my leftover school stuff. I fit pretty much thirteen years worth of learning into one box. There, contained in that little bit of cardboard, sits all of my accomplishments.  my life fits into - is summed up in that box. It just seems like it doesn't matter anymore. I mean in the  real world, how much will my high school transcript really matter? I can be defined in a box of paper but that isn't all of me.

This box has all of my awards in it. A stack of paper that's been sitting in my desk accumulating over the years. Who will care in a year that I got the principal's award in 5th grade?  Who cares now? What is the point of all this paper? The point is that it's my record of what I gave my life to. I focused on school and skipped out on relationships.

Now I've got relationships, at least sort of. But I realized today as I was ruminating in the sun that though I know so many different types of people from so many walks of life, I have only two kinds of relationships. Mostly, I keep people at a distance. I avoid getting attached to people as much as possible so that I can't get hurt. Then if I do have a meaningful relationship with someone, I'm constantly preoccupied with the concern that the relationship means more to me than the other person. I don't know where that fear started, but it has been true of my connections for a long time, and I think my failed relationship with Jack only cemented that fear as legitimate in my mind. My rationale and my emotions are fighting to the death in my brain. It's exhausting to think about.

I guess what this means is that no matter how good people are to me, at this point I just can't let things be the way they are. My fears and emotions keep getting in the way of amazing relationships. And I've got some great friends right now and I'm fully aware of that. I'm grateful for it. Yet when I'm not hanging out with or talking to these people that are so great, I'll think about wanting to talk to them and say to myself, yeah, but they have other things to do besides talk to you. 

Perhaps the problem is that I don't trust myself or anyone else. I constantly doubt my friends and my ability to create or maintain relationships. I end up testing my friends to see if they'll initiate anything if I back off. It occurs to me that I should have to do that. I don't have to do that. But somewhere along the way, I decided I can't trust people (okay, so I know when that was) and I developed a fear of abandonment (I guess that was the same time). Such features are rather detrimental to surviving relationships.

The summer feels long. I'm going to use it to rebuild myself. I have to. Since I can remember, I have defined myself as someone who is the best in school and has a unique love of the stage. And these things are true. But now I'm going to college, in a place where that defines a large percentage of the people I will get to know. So I've got to figure out what else I am, beyond grades and stage. There has to be more to me.