I'm not quite sure how to write about this.

I feel, most of the time, as though I am alone.
I don't mean alone in the way that you sit in a room alone, or walk down the street late at night from the bus alone.

I mean...
I have friends, not many, but I don't want or need many. I am fairly selective with my friends for the most part. I am pretty sure I can count who I would consider my close friends on both hands- and everyone else doesn't really make it on the "friend" list at all, actually. Anyone else I am merely "friendly" with.

Pretty much you are in or out.

I don't see most of them very often, and I'm good with that too. When i see them I really value the time we spend together. I feel loved and I love them.

but...
the alone I speak of.
It's there. Pretty much always.
It doesn't go away. It's like theres a space between me and everyone else. There are so many things I can't take out and share, but I really want to. I feel like a long time ago part of me really just was locked up and I find myself hunting around on my hands and knees looking for the damned key now and then.

I feel often like no one really knows me?
Which is silly, right? I have friends, very dear friends, who I am very close with that I have known since grade school.

But for me, I feel this... sometimes palpable distance. Isolation.

Every once in a great while [like maybe every five years or so if i am exceedingly lucky] I might stumble upon someone who seems to be able to reach at least half that distance though.

Which is nice... I think.
But it's very very jarring and I sometimes end up disoriented and really just not knowing what to do.

I feel intruded upon in a way, but i want that, too?
So often I just have time when i stop to think, and I end up thinking about how I feel just outcasted from humanity...
And I know that's such an extreme, dramatic, histrionic way to picture oneself.

but then... what does one do when it actually feels like that?

At this point I've kind of convinced myself that relationships are probably not my thing because it's pretty unlikely I'll be able to get that solid connection.

And, honestly?
I've gotten used to people thinking I'm all "unicorns and footie pajamas" [I'm not even sure how to describe how I'm actually perceived but that is fairly close}, and then it's "oh no she's a human being!" and they just cut out as soon as it's apparent their assumptions were way off the mark.

So i find myself lately withdrawing even more.

I'm not sure what I'm trying to say or ask.

I am worried this writing makes it seem as though I'm presenting myself as some particularly unique and magicaly being in the universe. I don't really think that. I just find it hard to relate to any one in a way that i feel connected so I feel like they know who I am.

I feel guarded, pretty much 24/7.

When I actually, on the rare occasion, feel as though I don't have to be as guarded, I find I have no idea what to do with myself and get really confused and disoriented.

blah blah blah.

I don't know.
Thanks to anyone who can make sense of any of this ridiculousness.