A life left behind

Your college years will be the best of your life is how I’ve heard people describe life as a student my whole life. Parties, drinks, hook ups, adventures. The works. Everyone’s dream life.

Don’t throw away your life locked in this house, lost in your little fantasy world is what my father used to tell me ever since I was a little girl.

I never really understood what he meant. Sure, I was never a very social person. I never really had that many friends. But I wasn’t an outcast either. Just… mediocre. Which was good enough for me. Blending in, being… ordinary. It seemed like the best outcome for me.

Not because it’s what I really wanted to be. I just never had the tools to become… extraordinary. I was never too beautiful, too smart, too funny or pleasant to be around. Just… okay.

I wanted to be more, of course I did. How could I not? My father is always being praised for his cutting mind and success, my mother for her style and elegance and my younger brother for his humor and people skills. He can make even the most closed off people like him, always has.

When you’re surrounded by these kinds of people, the kind that stand out, the kind others admire and praise, even envy, it’s only natural to crave that kind of attention as well.

Crave something that will make you stand out, something to excel at, something to be admired for.

I never had something like that. A quality so strong that it creates a scent of capability that others can just sense. That distinguishes you from the rest. So, I made it up. I’m rather good at that.

I made up a whole world in my head. And in that world, I’m always the brightest, the sexiest and people are dying to know me. To be me. To hear my opinion and follow my advice. I gave fake-me something I never got in the real world. Appeal. Praise. Admiration.

Rather hard to abandon such a well-crafted lie for the truth, isn’t it?

Give up my little fantasy world for a rather painful reality.

So, I kept doing it all the way from my childhood to my adolescence. Always had a little voice in my head that reassured me I could pull back anytime I wanted. I could ignore the fake world in my head and face the real one.

Always have a deeper one go you know you can’t, you know you can never leave us behind.

I chose to believe in the first one. Aways. Even if I always managed to prove it wrong.

Every failure I faced made it easier. Look, now’s the time to quit living a lie. You need to stop if you want to pass your exam, if you want a real relationship, if you want to ace your finals and go to college.

I did manage to accomplish all those things. But I never strayed too far away from my little illusion. It always sucked me right back in.

After a while I questioned my need to leave it all behind. I mean, I managed to stay afloat. I didn’t drown in either reality so why exactly did I need to cut one of them off?

So, what if I never had sex? Or anyone to hold me and play with my hair or make me feel safe? Touching myself and imagining someone there was just as good. Wrapping my own arms around my torso, imaging that it was someone else’s. A fictional character’s of course because I never gave real people a chance to form a crush. Or rather, I never let myself believe that someone could be interested in me, that little old me could very well pick someone and go for it. That I’d even stand a chance.

So, what if I didn’t have a long-lasting childhood friendship, a person that felt more like a sibling than a friend to get drunk and share all my secrets with? I could conjure up someone in my head in no time.

So, what if I never really fit in with my real friend group? The one in my head made for excellent company, and I’m their leader, the glue that keeps it together. Good luck finding that back in the real world.

And for a while it worked. I was so deep in denial that I genuinely thought I was pulling it off.

I should have known that I was only fooling myself. That locking myself in my bedroom would have consequences.

Life moves on. Time moves forward. It can’t freeze or stop, and it waits for no one. Hard to grasp when you’ve spent your entire life lost in books that tell you otherwise. Of course, the protagonist can freeze time, can make life feel less than without her presence. She’s extraordinary.

So, you walk out of your bubble one day. Step into your real life. And it’s worse than you thought.

Best years of your life? Gone. Opportunities to become someone? None. No long-lasting friendships, no dreamy love life. Nothing.

Everything the best years of your life can offer you just… stolen away from you. Reality, life, time stole them from you.

And yet, that’s not the truth, is it? No one stole them away; they were all right there. YOU weren’t. And they went away. You lost them.

Not lost either, you knew where they were. I knew where they were. I left them behind. I left the real world behind.

Not the fake one I always said I could just shed off. The real one.

Too busy chasing praise from fake figures in my mind like a drug addict chasing happiness in his next dose.

But that happiness is never real. Neither was the praise. Or the accomplishment that it filled me with. Something always felt off, wrong.

And my only chance to make it real is lost.

No, not lost. Left behind.