I don’t know about anyone else but when I head back to campus, even when I used to head back to school, I always have had immense anxiety. I don’t know what it is, maybe it is just the separation of family but this semester, this year, starts a whole new separation. My brother moved out in the fall semester of 2013, meaning that I will be essentially “alone”. I will state clearly now that I do not do well alone. I tend to fall deeper into myself. Maybe it is because I feel abandoned…

The thing about falling deeper into myself is that I feel much more comfortable about falling into that place of isolation. I feel much better without people unless they are my brother or sister. Yes I have people I consider friends but none of them truly know who I am. Is that too dramatic? Maybe. But, I have always separated my life in a school-me and an actual-me. School-me has always had the politeness of a princess and the walls of the Great Wall of China. I can laugh and talk to people jovially but when it comes to them knowing the real me I stop them and they hit that wall, they may not know it but they do. The Actual-me is morbid and blunt but still polite. I can be myself when I don’t have to hid my sense of humor or thoughts in my head. I am always, however, polite and I treat people with respect as much as they show me.

I don’t know why I separate school and me but I do. I noticed now with my friends that I don’t really talk about anything that pertains to outside of school like my likes and dislikes and interests and what I do outside of school. I don’t tell people that I have a blog, multiple blogs, or that I write a ton of stories and then scrap them, I don’t tell anyone that because it isn’t in my nature to disclose it.

But, seriously, is this normal? I have no clue if I am the only one who does this.

I always have envied my sister because she is so connected to her friends they are like sisters and that she is so outgoing, I am not.

Maybe I have typed a jumbled mess but I really am wondering where my anxiety comes from because it really hinders my sense of independence that I am feeling that I lost.

-Fleeting Mermaid