As a go-to move, it's my bread and butter.
So much so that in the last four months or so alone, I've dropped nearly every friend I had on Facebook, turned myself into a perpetual hermit, cannot stand to be out in public for more than an hour at a time and for the most part walk around like I stole Harry Potter's invisibility cloak.
And for the life of me, I doubt I could give a decent explanation why.
Or maybe I can, but I just don't like the reason.
I'm running away because in my mind I have to. I'm running away and cutting all ties because in my mind, I'm not supposed to have friends or people who care about me.
Seriously. You're not supposed to care. Not about me. Not about what I'm doing or how I'm feeling. I am Mr. Irrelevant, the Disposable Friend! Just take him out, use him to your heart's content, then chuck him in the trash where he belongs when you're done! No fuss, no muss, only $19.95, order now while supplies last!
That has been playing through my head for I don't-know-how-long. But the fact remains that when you a mindset and perspective like that, getting attached to people is far from easy.
So I would go online and see people on social media talking about how great their lives are, what their kids are doing, the vacations they take, and "Oh golly gee, aren't we all so lucky to have everything we ever wanted?"
And I would fold myself into the Yang a little further and get so angry and bitter and jealous that I could punch a hole through the sky or scream a mountain into sand. Then one morning I got up, went to work and on my break, I started pruning my Facebook tree. By the time I was done, less than 10 percent of the people I knew were left, and I didn't just prune those virtual branches carefully with bonsai shears. No, I slashed them with a ruddy great sickle so there was no chance they would ever grow back.
And while I did it, I kept thinking to myself, "See, that will show them. I don't need them anymore. I don't need anyone. They don't give a shit about me and my shitty little life, so I won't give a shit about them and their lives of bloody Riley."
Did it make that much difference, though? Not really. The world kept turning and I don't think any of those people noticed, because if they were smart, they tuned me out a long time ago.
I don't blame them if they did, either. You can only stay afloat so long with an anchor tied to your leg, and I have been nothing if not a big freakin' anchor for a good amount of years. Sooner or later, one has to cut the line or be pulled down with the anchor and given the human aversion to drowning, you attack that line with every ounce of energy you can muster.
Like I said in my first post. I grew to really like being down below everyone in the abyss of the Yang. It's quiet there. No one to bother you with trivialities. It's just you alone in the dark with your thoughts, whatever they might be. Except mine were telling me non-stop all day, every day, the same damn thing.
"You're not leaving here. I won't let you. They won't miss you because they don't need you. You can't have what you want and you will only have what I tell you. Do you understand? If you try going back up there, they'll only hate you more and you won't have a choice but to come back down here. And when you do...I'm going to kill you for disobeying me."
When you have a voice like that relentlessly going off in your head, day after day, year after year, you'd be amazed how fast you can tune the world out, and everyone in it who wants to keep you up, and let yourself just sink.
That might explain why I never could actually float when I was in a river or lake or swimming pool. I never gave the world a fair chance to hold me up.
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