I feel like I have spent my entire life within the confines of my bedroom. I don't really have any friends, at all, just my family. My best friend is my mom. My second-best friend is my grandma, who lays dying in her house, in a fancy new hospital bed we bought because her doctor told us to. She's barely 'there' anymore. She isn't the same person anymore. When I visited, the day before yesterday, she tried to comfort me. Not about the situation (she is not aware of her dying, most of the time. and when she is, she tells my mother that she regrets being born. and that she's sorry for being such a bother. and then she forgets again.) but about the fact that I had a slight cold and hadn't seen my pet cats in a while. my third-best friend is my aunt, who is planning on committing suicide at the end of may. I've told you this before. It doesn't get any less bad. In may, I will have one friend left. I will only have my mother.

My mother is a wonderful, incredible person. She is such a hard worker and has very clear thoughts about what the world is supposed to be like, and what every person is supposed to do. She taught me to read long before I first went to school. When I was young (eight, younger?) she taught me how to use Excel. Put me on a typing course so I could type without looking at my hands. She cared for me, even though I'm a mentally ill fuckup who could barely fight their way through high school. I love my mom. We get along. Sometimes I swear she hates me, when she yells, when she shushes me, when she looks at me with nothing but disappointment. Rock-steady as her world-view is, unless I am exactly as she wishes, I will never be 'good enough'. She married her husband, who turned me into something small and frightened, locked in its room for years. occasionally crawling out, maybe to get some water, but never into the living room. that's enemy territory. He spent all her savings on weed. I still love my mom, even if her taste in men is terrible. I love her because she is my mother and my only friend, and she's kind to me, and when I cry she tells me to shut up because if she sees me cry she starts crying, too.

I have spent all of my life trapped in this room. It's a good room. I have all I need. But I feel like I've missed out, past the treshold of 'normal age to make new friends awkwardly'. I have a career. I'm a nobody. I don't know anyone. I get frightened when I have to go say hello to a neighbor. It's too late to fix me, I fear. And I depend too much on the internet. When you're home all the time, and you don't have any friends, and you can't leave your room (affectionately called 'your cage') you sit in front of the computer and try to make online friends. Small and stupid as you are, you will lose most of them within a few years, once they get sick of you. And they're slipping away again. And I'm frightened. And I miss grandma, even though she's still alive, because that isn't really grandma anymore. Grandma used to read every book after I finished reading it, just so we could discuss it together. After I was done reading, I would wordlessly hand it over to my grandma, and she would drop whatever she was doing and start reading. We would go on hours-long walks all criss-cross through our neighborhood, even though we knew what everything looked like already. She would point out all the flowers and plants and tell me what they were called. I wasn't lonely. I'm so terribly alone, now. When I go on walks I listen to the same podcast over and over again, even though I know all the words by heart. If I listen to it enough, maybe it'll become a part of me. Maybe the hosts will become my family. It's so cold outside, and I'm so small, and alone, and I don't know what any of the flowers are called. Whenever I was at my grandma's house, sitting at her desk, she would bring me an apple sliced into four pieces, and she would hug me from the back. She was a lot shorter than me, so she could only do this like that when I was sitting down. I felt enveloped, even though she was so tiny. I felt safe. She loved me. It doesn't matter what happens to you when you are loved, because you're safe, at least in some ways. You can't be truly alone if someone loves you, even if they're far away.

I don't want to be alone anymore. I don't know how to make friends. I'm trying so, so hard to go back to school but colleges don't want me. I don't know what to do-- I send out my terrible high school grades in a silent plea, a 'please help me. nobody else wants me. please take me in'. I love my mother but the moment she got married she replaced me. I love her but she's so, so busy, and I'm an adult, and I'm supposed to have found my people by now, so she doesn't have to be worried anymore. I need to go outside and make friends, but I don't know how. I think it's too late for me. I'm so alone. and I have nothing to offer.

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