Somewhat Better Now

This time last year, I was worried.  I had barely told anyone about my plans to go to graduate school.  I didn't know how I was going to apply, as it seemed that there was so much I wasn't able to do.  I felt alone and near hopeless.  Now, I am technically in grad school, just not the one I was planning on.  I still plan to apply to the type of program that I want, but plans are still up on the air.  My biggest challenge at the start of a new year is that I could soon be unemployed.  Yes, I am self-employed, so you can put two and two together to figure out what might be happening.  I don't want it to happen, but the decision might be out of my hands.  The problem is that I have hardly been the one in charge of buy own life.  Someone else has always been the one planning my life, leaving me aimless, not following any of my own dreams.  Now, just a month from my birthday, I feel like I have been left behind.  I am not sure what my next steps will be.  While I don't feel as helpless as I have been in the past, I need guidance.  Real guidance, from people I feel a connection to that I can fully trust.  So far, I don't know who this will be.  I feel alone at times, social media and online classes a poor substitute for actual interaction with real people in real situations.  Loneliness has plagued me my whole life, never being able to be around other people, always feeling an outsider, even when I am around others with the same likes, abilities and/or aptitudes.  When I was younger, I didn't have this problem.  However, as I have gotten older, this lack of social awareness had gotten worse.  Just the thought of having to spend days stuck at home again threatens to derail me.  Four years, I basically stayed at home, with almost no one to be around with.  No one tried to get in touch with me, or I brushed off the few who tried.  I felt clumsy, out of touch, embarrassed that I didn't really know what to do.  At least for the past eighteen years, I have had the opportunity to almost be around others, even if I didn't really do so.  Some have thought that I was shy or quiet.  It's just the opposite.  I just need to feel comfortable enough to be myself.  That's hard when I don't trust or connect immediately with those around me.   My naiveté about the world, from not being allowed to interact with large parts of it, has compromised me.  I have been kept too safe, instead of being allowed to live.  I am messed up, but not in a bad way, just a sad way.  I might have a seed of darkness, evil, shadowed within my soul, but it is a light one, but still I wonder what would have happened if I didn't have hope, the cornerstone of my personality.  Even at my lowest, I knew that someone was out there.  Maybe they didn't know it, but they were there for me, the possibility of another chance egging me on.  Thank you.  Onto the next challenge.  Tomorrow is on its way.