Explanation.

Life is so unexpected at times. Just when I think I have everything figured out, life manages to throw a curve ball at me every single time. Last night was no exception to say the least. I used to have problems and struggle over staying true to myself. In stressful social situations I would conform into another person so that conversation would flow more smoothly and I wouldn't feel so alone. After years of working on myself, I finally got rid of one bad habit only to develop another one. Well, it's not necessarily a habit but a bad sort of emotion I get: loneliness. After I stopped trying to conform to society, I found an overwhelming sense of loneliness I had never experienced before. For the past few years I've tried working on this, as well, but it's hard to feel satisfied. I often try to put the loneliness and unwanted feelings in the back of my mind and push it away. To forget about it all. Perhaps a form of denying that the feeling is there. I try to go about my life and act like I'm not hurting and I'm not suffering when in reality it's eating me away on the inside... It's only when a totally unexpected event unleashes these hidden feelings, thoughts, and emotions does everything in the back of my mind come rushing out.

Yesterday I was scheduled to work a double shift at Cheddar's which was fine by me. I don't mind the job, and the more I work, the more money I have to buy a camera. It seemed as though nothing could go right for me at work though. One little scenario after another happened to me yesterday,but individually the scenarios didn't affect me. As a whole though they started to rip me apart. It wasn't just particularly rude customers, but more so my even more rude co-workers. I thought that having a job and being out in the real world would be a relief from the frustrating high school setting I'm used to. Obviously I was very misguided in my thinking though! My co-workers (about 95%) of them are nothing more than a bunch of inconsiderate, rude, and immature grown up teenagers. They may be years ahead of me, but sometimes I doubt their intelligence. Because I'm the youngest and newest, they feel it's okay to take advantage of me, walk all over me, and just be outwardly rude. Pretty much how everyone else treats me in my life unfortunately. Not only are they all previous, lovely adjectives, but they truly isolate me. They all disinclude me in their conversations, ignore me, and just use me when it's convenient for them. Isolation I'm incredibly familiar with, but I would have figured I wouldn't have to listen to drunken renditions and drug bust stories like I'm forced to listen to when I'm in school. These people make me so incredibly disappointed and sad... I thought that perhaps I would get the chance to connect with others like myself after I got away from school, but I am just sadly disappointed. It makes me feel absolutely and totally hopeless. It makes me think as though, "is there really no one out there like me? Am I really going to be this alone forever....?"

After a long day of dealing with all of the little jibes of this and that listed above, the breaking point was at the end of the night for me. I would have been fine if this one little conversation had never happened, but it did happen and now I'm somewhat thankful. One of the busers was kindly talking to me about my life and asked if I liked my school. I replied back to him that I didn't because I didn't fit in. He then proceeded to ask the harmless question that dug into my very core: "Do you have any friends?" What a simple and not intentionally hurtful question it was. Something that shouldn't ever be hard to answer, but for some reason it was for me. I managed to stammer out a no which sent the boy into a fit of further questioning and I could see that familiar look of pity in his eyes. The look of pity that comes into everyone's eyes as I tell them about my real life. I could hear the "I'm so sorry" tone in his voice as he tried to put together a decent reply. For that moment when I replied no, my life became a startling reality to me. All of the pain and loneliness I deal with on a day to day basis became real and not just something locked into the depths of my mind. Saying out loud what I'm always too scared to say even to myself became a startling reality that I was trying not to face and still sometimes don't want to face.

My shift ended shortly after this conversation and upon getting in my red VW bug the tears just started pouring from my eyes uncontrollably. I had this terrible, horrible, gut wrenching feeling in the pit of my stomach. I had never felt so alone and worthless and I didn't quite understand why. So many months upon months of bottled up emotions and trying to be brave were let out all at once with just a simple, unexpected event. I cried the whole way home, unsure of what exactly I was upset about. I knew one thing though: I needed to write. I felt this pulling, unnerving feeling that I had to write. My fingers itched for a pencil or a key board. As I arrived home I threw my bag on the floor and went straight to the computer. I opened a new blog post, cried my eyes out, and wrote whatever was coming from my heart at the moment. After I finished I didn't care about anything but getting my feelings out there. I published the post without re-reading it to check for grammatical errors and spelling errors. At that moment I didn't care. I also turned off the ability to leave comments. I just had this strange hatred of anything that had to do with pity at that moment. I could just picture the pity in the boy's eyes when I had told him that I had no friends and I didn't want to picture it in any of your eyes, as well. It's not that I didn't want your support, but I just had to put something raw and totally free out there where I could release all of the pain I was feeling. I ended up crying myself to sleep last night and praying to God to just help me...

I had to go into work again this morning at nine, but when I arrived home I had an overwhelming amount of emails, messages, and comments waiting from all of you. I sat there and read them all with a heavy heart and can honestly say that I cried reading each one.. The strength and faith you all have in me is incredible and it makes me wildly jealous. You all have the confidence in me that I can never have in myself. I admire all of you followers so very much because you all have such beautiful and kind souls... I wrote above how after working with so many rude and unfeeling people it feels like I'll never meet anyone kind, but you all prove me wrong every time. Boy, would I just kill to have you all here in Ohio with me to give you a big, warm hug of thanks. I'm endlessly appreciative of your beautiful, comforting words. As I said, I'm envious of many of you, especially those of you who have such a beautiful relationship with God. I've been trying to have a closer relationship with Him, but I often feel as though I don't try hard enough or I don't trust in him like I need to. You all are an inspiration to me because I want the beautiful, pure, never ending relationship with God that you all have. I crave it and need it. More so than any human's affection, God's needs to come first and foremost...Thank you all for helping me to see that and for your heavenly words to me <3

I plan on personally replying back to every message that was sent to me, but it might be a few days. I'm currently without my house computer and am left using my Dad's laptop which I can only use in the evenings... But I do promise I'll get back to you all! Additionally, I need to apologize for being so absent from all of your beautiful blogs as of late... Along with a lack of computer, I have been working crazy amounts lately and am completely worn down... Just this weekend alone I worked nearly twenty hours, and next week I work five out of the seven days. Please try and stay with me as I work through this crazy new schedule of mine! I miss commenting/visiting your blogs dearly and will try my very best.

Finally after this very long post (congrats if you made it all the way through! If not, I can't blame you...) I'd like to say that I'll be back with an outfit post tomorrow! Whew! If only I had said that in the beginning ;)

With much, much love and thanks: Lauren.