So here is my list of why I am a good person deserving of occupying the tiny space I have on this important green globe.

I am loyal. I can keep my mouth shut on the worst secrets people tell me. (I don't know how I would behave under torture though). I am pretty tolerant, although that tolerance goes straight to hell once I reach the limit. I am thoughtful, most of the time. What utter trivialities.

There must be something nice about me because there are people who do like me. Someone told me that I was really nice. And I had my fiercest critics change their minds once they discovered the real me. Not the stuck up shallow flirt they thought I was. And I have been told several times that I have an undeniable factor that draws people to me. So yes, there must be something shining beneath all that muck that enables people to become fond of me.

So why am I still feeling stuck in solitude mode?

Maybe the solitude is good. The time-out to recover and build up my comfort zone. For the first time in two years, I feel happy and looking forward to meeting up with all my old friends. For the last two years, I just felt ill, forced, or unable to sustain a feeling of comfort and companionship with anyone else, except maybe Jingle and BF. But yes, I think they felt it as well. The gradual hardening of a protective shell.

Even with Hamlet, Sweet Teeth and the rest, it was like eking a day-to-day subsistence lifestyle. If you know what I mean. It is not something derogatory. It felt like I wasn't myself. Like I was merely acting out the proper motions to a dance, when I did not enjoy the dancing anymore. I wanted a break from the waltz but did not know the proper and polite way to excuse myself without hurting someone. I think they did sense it though. They told me I was pulling away from them. They could feel it. I didn't do it consciously. I just wasn't up to anything. There wasn't time to recover my own personal space. A pity it took so long to do so, and they had to leave to begin the healing process.

Of course there is the other debased side of the coin. Am I the only person who sees it? Or is there something really unpleasant about me that the critics are right and the reason why they dislike me? Something cold-blooded and slithering inside. Or is that merely my own impression of myself? I know that my friends have told me that there is something much finer in me that many people don't which makes enemies out of these people. Are my friends blind?

Because I don't think so. Sometimes I think everyone who likes me just falls for some pretty mask I paint on. Or that is my problem. I am selfish and arrogant to think that people are dumb enough to fall for my manipulation beneath the surface, like my friends.

I hate feeling insecure. It makes everything feel so filthy. Like I need to scrub myself clean to renew myself. Slough away the old skin and emerge from the chrysalis. Like what I am doing now. Renewal. Rebirth.

Or maybe I am really a snake and just change skins all the time.