Escapism

I have a tendency to run away. I hide in some kind of fake world when everything gets too hard.

It's a habit I started as a child. When I got too scared and alone, when my depression cycled around, everyone would pretend nothing was wrong. I felt invisible, and that hurt too much. So I escaped into books, and movies, and my own imagination. Those were the places where I could be important. Because those worlds couldn't exist without me. I had value because I brought life to the imaginary.

Now I've grown up a bit, and I can't escape into my imagination the way I used to. I used to be able to fully block out the real world, and live in a fantasy. Now life is too real to be ignored. But I'm still not brave enough. I still run away.The dark times in my life are all accompanied by a spike in reading, or watching long series of shows, that I would get absorbed into.

It's the same now. I'm getting absorbed into Nana and Bones. In Nana, I can find someone strong, and in Bones, I'm in a world I can understand.

Nana is a tough punk rocker, who moves to Tokyo to make a future for herself. But underneath everything, Nana is so sad that it's agony. She's afraid of being alone, and she wants to be back with Ren, but her pride is in the way. She doesn't want to beg to get him back. He left, and now she wants to prove (I think mostly to herself) that she can live without him. But people aren't meant to be alone. She's in such a terrible mental state that she's tearing herself apart. She has panic attacks, and crippling fear. As much as she appears to be a free spirit, she hangs on to everyone she loves, terrified that they'll leave her too. But in the end, no one ever knows how much she's suffering. She can hide it from everyone, and everyone thinks she's okay. I wish I was strong like that. I wish I could hide how I feel from everyone. I wish I could pretend to be okay. I wish I could wall myself off and be cold. But I can't. I feel like I care too much. If you care about people more than they care about you, all you'll find is pain. That's why I can relate to Nana. I'm happy for her that she was able to overcome her fear of being abandoned again, and be with Ren in the end.

In Bones, what matters is the body found. One central ideal. There are branching sciences at work, but they all relate back. And Psychology is my comfort food. It deals with people and who they are at the core, and their emotions. I'm good at that. When I can be objective, I can read people's minds. (Don't ever wish for telepathy. You think you want to know what people are thinking. You don't.) I can understand people. It's something I'm good at, and it helps me feel like I have value.

As long as there's someone like me, I'm not crazy. As long as I have value, life is still worth living.