The Mistakes I've Made in the Papertown

I have made some pretty big mistakes in my life.  Especially within the last few months.  I have pushed everyone who has ever tried to get close to me post elementary school away; including friends, guys who like me, my parents, and other adults.  And it’s all because I’m afraid.  I’m afraid of commitment, of relationships, of hurting every single person I get near: emotionally, physically, and mentally.  I have lost so many opportunities and hurt so many people, and I could make so many excuses for why I am the way I am, but I don’t even know why I am this way.  

What I do know is this: this town, this papertown, is suffocating me with every breath I take.  I have lived in this town for 20 years and nothing has ever changed about it.  The houses are the same.  The people are the same.  And I’m still here.  Those paper houses, those paper people, and that paper me.  And we don’t leave because we don’t see what it does, staying in the same place that is.  We don’t see what else there is.  And if we do, we so often only stay within a three hour radius of where we began because we’re all afraid a little, of the commitment, of getting lost.  

But I have gotten lost and I haven’t even gone anywhere.  I’ve stayed in the papertown.  I’ve burnt my future here.  I’ve lost who I am and what I want.  I don’t recognize myself half the time I see myself or am alone with myself.  I’m not the same strong, bubbly, controlled me.  I’m not depressed by any means.  I’m just not happy anymore.  

I’ve been spending the last 4 months or so trying to figure myself back out, but I just can’t.  The pieces of myself have gotten lost and I can’t find them.  They’ve been scattered.  I know who has some pieces, but I don’t have the courage to get them back because they belong to those people who I have royally screwed up with.  Who’s trust and happiness I don’t deserve to share.  The rest of the pieces are somewhere locked within me, but putting them back together is going to take a lot of time and a lot of heart.  

January can’t come quick enough.  I need to start new.  To figure out what I want in life.  What I want to do with my life. Where I want to go in life. I need to go somewhere where no one knows me.  Where no one knows how broken I am or how lost in myself I am.    New Zealand. Where I can be whatever me I need to be.  Or I can be figure things out for myself again and just be me because I really miss myself.  I don’t like this side of me.

I can’t promise I’ll come back.  Leaving this papertown could be the best thing I could ever do to myself.  And instead of going to the papertown and never coming back, I am leaving the paper town and leaving for good.  I’ll be like Margo Roth Speigleman and make myself the mystery.  I’ll be an entirely new me.  Healthy, and ready to go.