Well, now what?

I've made my first confession, I'm not ok, but now what?

Do I face up to the fact that over the last year and a half most of my friends have only gotten cursory text messages, because how do you fit the truth into 300 characters?  And do I really want to have to write that text message over and over again to everyone?  How do I fit the vast expanse of grief into a text message?

I could have called, except, I couldn't. "I'm ok" comes out of my mouth and we talk about school, boys, clothes.  I mention I've been seeing a counsellor and everyone breaths a sigh of relief, including myself.  I no longer have to talk to any of my friends about it because I have my counsellor. That's what I'm supposed to do.  The pressure is off everyone.  Clearly I'm dealing with it properly.  I've taken all the right steps. I have all these "tools" to deal with my grief.  It'll be behind me in no time.  No one will change their perception of me. No one wants to be around someone who is sad all the time anyway, so "I'm ok" and they know it.

Except I'm not.

But how do I get to "ok"?  How can I feel like anyone can understand me any more if I have all the most important, life changing experiences locked up tight inside me with the key buried under my pile of "ok"s.   I have always been private, but I have also always been open and honest.  I have never had so many things, days, experiences, hidden from people. I have kept them all inside me because that way I can control them. They aren't out there for the world to know, to judge, to try to understand.

Part of all this is the feeling that even if I did tell everyone everything they still wouldn't understand.

Some of my friends know a few of the things, some of them know a few more.  But, I feel like without getting everything out there how can my friends and I have any understanding of each other at all any more.  All I want is for people to know where I am coming from but how can I expect them to do that if I don't tell them.

How do I bridge this giant crevasse that has been created?

CAN I figure out the "new me" without my friends?  "Old me" did everything on her own, but "Old me" got me into this uncommunicative mess.  This collision of "Old" and "New" has left me with all these crumbling walls that I'm not sure if I'm supposed to rebuild or break down.

So maybe I need to tell the stories of how I got here, to a place where I feel like the only way I can open up to my friends is by hiding behind words on the internet, to a place where even though I know I am loved by my friends I have never felt so isolated, lost and alone.