I never thought I'd reach this point, but here I am, sitting at my computer sans homework and lingering projects. What now?

For the past eight months, I've barely had a day to myself; my time was spent sprinting to class and to work and to the gym and to class again and to meetings and occasionally to a bar. When will it end? I asked. When will I able to sleep without the stern punch of an alarm pulsing through my brain?

Today.

Today I slept without an alarm. Today I didn't really do much of anything, and I just about went insane.

A deep fear has taken hold of me now that my life is without the structure of college. I feel lonely here. Most of my friends have moved to other places, and the idea of becoming a recluse threatens me. How do I meet people? Work is one way, but what about people outside of work? I'm closest to my boyfriend, whom I also work with, and that worries me. In fact, that's an entirely separate issue. It bothers me that I am close to him because I want to keep him at an arm's length, I want to remain detached. That doesn't even make sense. I want my own life, I want an existence apart from his. I thought about going to church, but everyone would immediately see through that facade. What about joining a karate class? That's next month. I really love spending time with him, but I don't want to become that girl who hangs out on her boyfriend's couch all night while he secretly wishes she would leave so he could turn on Monday Night Football without a protest. The other night we had a conversation while we were both drunk. In vino veritas. He told me that he could sense a wall around me. That he knew I loved him, but I wasn't letting him in completely. I didn't know I was being so obvious about it but I guess I'm pretty easy to read. It's not his fault. He's paying for the sins of someone else, and because of that I fear I'll never be able to let him in. I'm so scared to love him because when I let that happen I become vulnerable. Why can't I just trust him? Why can't I just give myself up to him? I don't know. He said something interesting. He said, "Loving someone means allowing that person to hurt you but trusting that they won't." He's very right.

Maybe someday I'll figure out how to truly give myself to someone, but I don't know how I'll do it. I tried to explain it to him. I tried to explain that I really, really want to let him inside, to completely trust him, but there's just something that won't let me. I can't let him hurt me. This all seems too good to be true and I can't come out of this a loser. I don't feel pretty enough. He flirts a lot. Sometimes I feel so ugly, other times I don't. Sometimes I feel so grotesque, like the other day when I got home from the gym and I was frizzy and sweaty and disheveled. I didn't even want him to look at me. How could he be attracted to me?

I've spent a lot of time doubting the existence of love and now that I might possibly be feeling it, I wonder just how it all could be. The notion that someone will love you through flu season and frizzy hair baffles my mind. During our drunken conversation, he said that if I ever cheated on him...and didn't finish the sentence. At least I know that he cares. This whole thing is funny because I really haven't felt this insecure in awhile. Overall I'm generally confident. I don't know what it is about this relationship that's making me question everything so much. I'm scared that he really does love me and that I'm going to mess it up, that I'm going to look gross one day or fart in my sleep (which I have done--and then spent the next half hour wondering if he heard) and he will decide he no longer loves me. Perhaps I don't feel worthy of love. I'm crazy for him, and I don't understand how anyone could reciprocate. But he does a lot for me. When my grandma died he came over and let me cry on his shoulder. I didn't want him to hear me. I felt like a baby, yet I felt justified for crying. She was my grandmother and she deserved a good cry. We sat on my bed and he said nothing; I know it's because he didn't know what to say, but the silence was comforting. And a few nights later when I had to go to bed early because I had work at 3 am he stayed with me until I fell asleep.

All this talk of love and figuring out how I'm going to make new friends is tiring. I'm off to bed.