Boo Radley's Come Out Of His Lair

Hi. I'm Blueberry Bear. My other name is "Boo Radley". I hide in my lair every day. I sell things on eBay to barely make ends meet. I don't talk to many people right now. The person I talk to the most is my new penpal in England. Too many bad things happened in too short a time, and I kind-of broke down. I guess I am quite depressed. I don't know anymore. Life is a weird dream nowadays.

I managed to apply to two graduate schools. The third school's application is not due until June. I want to be a social worker. I quit my full-time permanent job with benefits last August because my boss was very abusive and I was miserable. I have eked out an existence ever since, somehow. I have to do my taxes ASAP because I'm sure to get a fat refund. I also need to do them ASAP to give updated, accurate info to the financial aid offices regarding 2006.

I'm truly trying to find a temp job or permanent job to cover my ass the next few months before school starts. I seem to have no luck in getting anything, though. Well, I only have to get through the next 6 1/2 months or so. I have no medical insurance anymore, so I am trying to draw out my anti-depressants by not taking them every day. This is not working, though. My brain is not happy with not having the pills every day. I need so much to see a therapist, but I can't afford it. I'm a fucking mess, actually.

I talk to a boy in England. He's six months younger than I am. He is incredibly kind and intelligent. Talking to him is my link to sanity. I also talk to my friend here in Queens. She treats me like I'm normal, like I'm not the fucked up freak that I feel like inside. The boy in England treats me like the most wonderful person in the world. I wish I could get on an airplane and go visit him. I am going to meet him in Iceland this summer while I'm on my way to Sweden. Yes, I am going to Sweden this summer, come hell or high water. If I have to get another credit card to do it, I will.

I wish the English boy lived here. I've been talking to him for over a month. I told him things I've never told anyone else in this world, and vice-versa. Why can't I meet someone like that here? Why do the interesting people I meet online live across the ocean? I met him because I posted something on a site about the sci-fi subject of body swapping. He said he'd swap bodies with me so that each of us would know what it felt like to be in the other sex's body. It was totally innocent and childlike, the way we were talking about it. It was awesome! Then it went from there. Don't worry, I'm not going to pull another Alex.

I met a man named Alex on a Swedish website a few years ago and became his penpal and went to visit him the next year and ended up staying with him and ended up immigrating there because I had grown to love him very much...and he died soon after I moved there. I think that's when I lost most of the marbles I had left over from my life's experiences. I lost even more with other things that have happened since. I spilled most of the few remaining marbles working at jobs here in NYC where I was verbally and emotionally abused. I think my friend losing her mother and baby in less than one year really spilled out more. My other friend moving to Chicago made me lose whatever was left in there. I might have one or two marbles left. I dunno.

So, if you think I am crazy by talking to a boy who lives over 3,000 miles away and letting myself become emotionally attached to him, then you are right. I am crazy. I have one or two marbles left, and they are slipping out. And I want to be a social worker? How can I be a social worker when I myself am crazy? I will gain marbles by doing something meaningful with my life. That's why. I will help people going through grief and trauma and pain, and the act of helping them will lead me to the marbles I lost. I know this. Doing good for this world and its inhabitants is the only thing that keeps me alive. That's the only thing I want to do with my life: do good.

Will I stop talking to the boy in England once I regain my marbles? No. I have a feeling he'll be a lifelong friend. Our connection is that powerful already. I just won't feel so goddamn susceptible and sensitive to whatever fucking happens to me. I feel as thin as a robin's eggshell. The slightest tap might break me. English Boy handles me gently, as he would a robin's egg. He knows how to do that. That's just the way he is. He is immensely gentle and sensitive. He's delicate. English Boy doesn't hurt me. It just hurts that he's English Boy and not New York Boy. In other words, I wish I could feel such a connection to someone right here. God has other plans for me, though. God gives me the hard path, not the easy one, like usual. Thanks for sending me someone who I can't be with, God!!! Do you want me to be a nun or something?!?!? Yeah, I definitely have to start taking my meds. If it becomes too painful to talk to English Boy due to increasing emotional connection and geographical distance, I might have to take a break from him. I'm a robin's egg. The boy doesn't hurt me, but the situation does.

That's my so-called life, folks. Oh, yeah. Buddhist Boy is out of my life now. He decided to E-MAIL ME that he just wanted to be friends. I had spent the night at his house in his bed, and he went to work the next morning and E-MAILED this to me while I was still in his bed (I have e-mail on my phone). What the fuck? So I told him how fucked up that was and he said he didn't mean to hurt me, and I replied that I hoped he never handled a situation like that again, and I haven't heard from him since. That was Buddhist Boy. Bye-bye.