hmm

i'm not a very emotional person. not on purpose anyway. i'm all brains. no heart. that's not to say i'm smart or that i'm a genius or anything, i'm just fascinated by concepts. ideas. things of that nature. they're the one thing that can distract me from my own crushing inability to relate to other people.

i decided a long time ago that i was going to leave.
the first time was when i was seven. i think. it's all kind of fuzzy looking back at my childhood. the years sort of run into each other, five being just as plausible as eight.
i decided that i would run away then because my sister was running away and i'd rather she had a companion than face the elements alone, those elements, of course, seeming a lot more frightening at the time than they actually were. we lived in a fairly safe suburban setting. i doubt very much she would have made it to the end of the street without someone phoning my parents. in my head, however, i imagined her growing old, abandoning the family forever, living like a bum somewhere in california. and that's what frightened me the most: the thought of never seeing her again, assuming the worst possible fate had befallen her. honestly, though, that tiny glimpse of the life she might have had had she successfully made it all the way to california, or wherever she was going, actually ended up becoming at least half true. she's no better for sticking around here. and i'm no better for trying to stop her, in turn establishing a crippling trend in my selfish motivation for keeping people around, what you might call clinginess. it's the thought of them without me. not to say i complete them or anything or that they're better off with my influence. i just can't stand, absolutely cannot stand, to lose tabs on people. so that's why i followed my sister. and that's why i finally convinced her to come back home, trailing her the whole bike ride home, waiting anxiously for her to finally get inside and unpack her things because that meant she might be staying for good or, if not, at least it would buy me some time while she reconfigured all of her essentials into that tiny backpack again, more an accessory at that age than anything, she didn't really need it for school, she never carried anything in it, and perhaps taking off for good. that was the first time i tricked myself into believing i could just walk away from something, no matter how half-assed and incompletely.