Chronology of Me

When I was going through old school journals, I found that in several of them, I had made a page called "Shaun's Friends" and a handful of people would sign it. Some of the people that signed it are people that I know I never really was friends with; in fact, some of them grew up to be cruel people that I avoid associating with. Along with that, the people that I was friends with who did sign the pages still weren't people I was actually really close to at all… they were usually just people I would casually talk to in class.

All of this leads me to believe that maybe I made all those pages because I didn't really have close or best friends. Maybe it was my way of fooling myself? Maybe I thought that if I just had some kind of physical proof that I had friends, that it would make it true. Or maybe it wasn't anything like that... maybe I actually believed it, that all those people really were my friends. Maybe I thought it was some kind of binding contract, where once they signed it they were obligated to be my friend for the remainder of that year. Whatever the idea behind it was, there is no denying that the pages were false and misleading.

The more I think about myself in elementary school, the more I realize that in the majority of memories I am either alone or just kind of tagging along with people that somewhat ignored me. It's just funny because I've always had the idea in my head that everyone was friends with everyone in elementary school and that I had many friends.. but it's slowly becoming apparent that none of that is true.

I've always been separate from pretty much every crowd, and even now I only really have two best friends or real friends at all, but for some reason I always thought that those feelings of exile originated from Junior High. I was an unusual character in Junior High, people assumed that I was a freak and would either be assholes or try to avoid me as a whole. Of course, me being an angsty teen, I always added to the feeling of separation by acting weird and trying to give them reasons to stay away from me. I have always seen it in my head that Junior High is when I started withdrawing from people, but when I really think about it, it did all start in elementary school.

I've always wanted to blame my awkward, uncomfortable, and anxious behavior on events that occurred in junior high, but now I am starting to realize that none of those things caused it. I was born the way that I am. Maybe I wasn't like this immediately, but that's probably because the feelings were some sort of a land mine waiting to be ripped open whenever my brain found a reason to trample over it.

I could blame it on my parent’s death, I could blame it on the events of 8th grade, I could blame it on my genealogy and the fact that maybe my Dad was some sort of a dejected recluse.

But the fact of the matter is, that maybe I am the one that caused all of this. That maybe no one made me this way, but I have instead always been this way.

Most people are like wine and they grow better with age, they learn to appreciate things more, they gain more experiences and they just grow better as a person… but me, I think I'm more of a glass of milk. I grow more sour and intolerable, until eventually people have to throw me out of their lives.

I bitter with age, I grow more distant, and I have fewer and fewer ties to humanity.

Maybe eventually I'll become so set apart that I just cease to exist. I'll crawl off somewhere and die of old age without anyone to know that I died or that I ever lived.

Maybe these thoughts seem morbid, but they aren't that way to me, I don't mean them that way, anyway. And if these entries seem morbid to you, then you really don't want to read any further into this journal.