2000-12-31-4:37 am CDT
It's been awhile since I've written here. There are reasons for that. I've become very weary of the net, which is something I never thought would happen. Maybe it's not weariness necessarily. Maybe it's just that I don't need it like I once did. There was a time, about this time last year actually, that I was miserable. I didn't really have a real friend to lean on. The one that I did have was a hundred miles away at another school. It was my first year at college. Everyone knows how difficult change is. My roommate hated me because I am "too nice" in her words. Maybe someone can explain that line of thought to me later. I found myself forcing my way into groups that didn't want me, groups that I didn't really want to be a part of. I turned to the net because I had nowhere else to go. It was my escape. My parents didn't help things. No one in my family could understand what was going on in my life. My brother was finishing up his stint in the Marines and he was in Japan. Then I found my internet friends. It seemed that they knew what I was going through. Everyone that I encountered was looking for something to fill that loneliness within them. As the year progressed I found myself more and more entangled in this digital world and I thought I had found my place. Recently I have started to draw away. I haven't spoken to those internet friends in months. But instead of retreating back into the same state that drew me here, I have found parts of me, aspects of my personality that I never thought I had. For awhile I longed to be wild and uninhibited. I wanted to be outgoing and even a little funny. Then I realized that I AM outgoing and funny, maybe not so unhibited but I know how to have fun. It wasn't the net that helped me see that. It was my in-person friends that showed me these things. They let me be me and they love me for it. Yes, I still get quiet in new situations. I still get self conscious about my body shape/size/color. But they don't care that I don't have the perfect body (who does?) or that I am extrememly shy around new people. I thought I had found myself. And I have. But it wasn't here on the internet and it wasn't in the chat rooms or the instant messages or the emails. I find myself in the late night talks with my roommate/best friend within 100 miles, C, or the movie nights with our other friend D. I don't need to escape to this computer world where no one knows me and I can be whoever I want. I have this world, the (dare I say it) real world with real touches and embraces and where every expression is seen clearly through the lens of the eye instead of the lens of a webcam. I don't want to be whoever. I want to be me. And I have finally found people who let me. Of that I can never grow weary. Love,
Supersteph
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