Well, I think I should just own up to something that has been bothering me ever since last weekend. I really need to vent my feelings, so here it comes:

Last weekend, as some of you know, I went to two halloween parties with some friends, both in Orlando. It was nice seeing some friends again, but all the excitement died pretty fast. Now, I'm not blaming anyone. It's nobody's fault at all, but I was quite literally left alone most of the time. Well, it wasn't bad at all at the Wasabi party on Friday night, since I was with Dan and Nicki, two of my really good friends. I feel, though, that because of communication problems there were considerable distance between me and the two of them.

However, at the JACO party on Saturday night, it was a lot worse. It was a much larger party and I went with another friend, Susan. I enjoy Susan's company nowadays and we're pretty good together. But, at the party she went off on her own with some other friends like Kell, Usagi-Susan, Amanda, etc. and left me alone. I tried many many times to hang out with others and stay with them, but it has always proved fruitless and I'm, of course, left wandering the halls by myself. Finally, around 9:00 that night, I got really depressed and went up to Susan and lied (I'm REALLY sorry, Susan!) to her, said that I had a headache and needed to go to my car to relax. But what was really going on was that I was so sad and depressed, I needed some real quiet time to myself and have a good cry. Yes, that's how pathetic I am. I ended up sitting in the car all by my lonesome for two hours, all sorts of thoughts going through my head. I never did, am not, and will not hold it against her or anybody else, I strongly believe it wasn't their fault. I really feel that communication is a major issue, with my hearing disability and speech impediment. At every social gathering, party or convention I've gone to, it always results (with a few exceptions) in the same way; I'm left alone. I usually end up leaving early, fed up.

Truth be told, I'm not looking for sympathy at all. I'm looking for empathy, for understanding. I want others to understand my situation as is. Since the 2 hour meditation period on Saturday night, I've realized that I am truly depressed. Oh, I've tried to hang out with other deaf people but because I was raised in the 'hearing' culture, and not the 'Deaf' culture, we often clash. When I was in the hearing-impaired program in middle school and for the first semester of my freshman year in high school (before I moved here to Melbourne) I have always been picked on and outcasted from the deaf clique. Those three and a half years were extremely tramuatic; I would get beat up every week by them just because of the way I was raised. In ninth grade, I was almost killed when somebody who happened to be bipolar tried to throw me off the stairs.

Life has improved dramatically since I moved to Melbourne in December of 1998. As my mother put it, "it was as different as night and day." However, loneliness remained. I was the only deaf student in high school and the only person I had contact with on a regular basis that knew sign language was Linda, my interpreter. God rest her soul, the lady was a saint. (For those of you that didn't know her, she was with me all throughout high school and passed away due to an aneursym three months after I graduated.) There were some students that knew a few sign language, and they were all friendly. I was good friends with about two of them but both of them have moved away since.

In August of 2001, I started my freshman year at Florida Institute of Technology studying Computer Science. It was the greatest year of my college life so far. However, due to a really dumbassed mistake on my part (buying an 802.11b wireless card for my laptop, which resulted in me not paying attention in one of my classes) I failed a single class which caused me to lose my scholarship and I had to transfer to a community college to complete my AA degree. I'm still at it, and I'm expecting to complete the degree this summer. For the past three years, my sole contact with a sign language interpreter was Heidi. She's an awesome woman, we both enjoy each other's company and I'll miss her when I have to move this summer. But alas, I had no contact with other people who knew sign language.

I have a best friend of 14 years, his name is Jeff. We've always been best friends through thick and thin, but he lives two hours away from me. It's becoming increasingly hard for us to find time to hang out with each other and I don't have contact with him as much.

By now, you're probably wondering what my point is. Well, I guess I'm trying to say that I'm continually trying to improve my life and be happier, but I'm writing this because I'm tired of putting up a facade. I'm rarely ever truly happy, I'm always tired, bored, depressed and angry at my parents. I really want to change, to improve myself but my disability is a really big hurdle. I feel like Sisyphus, the King in Greek mythology that was doomed to pushing a stone up a hill for eternity, but never succeeding. I guess I needed to vent and get this out of the way. Wow, I feel really relieved now that I've typed all this. If you've gotten this far, thank you very much for being patient with me. I guess I just needed a shoulder to cry on.