When you see movies, watch silly coming of age YouTube videos, read Reddit posts new and old, and really start to connect with people over bonfires or a smoke outside- it often seems like everyone has such a beautifully imperfect childhood.

Being young and dumb, having friends, going to the movies, walking around town, breaking the law, hooking up, camping, underage drinking, yada yada.

I didn't really realize it until after I graduated- I never had that childhood. Or, any childhood, really.

From middle school to (really) now, I never had a lot of friends. Most of them were online, people I'd never met, people I'd never really gotten to know aside from fake names and virtual personas.

I don't have anything happy to look back on. I was pretty sheltered, only allowed to use the internet when I was a kid and kept inside, by the time I was old enough to make the decision I didn't know any better. I had a few great memories; most of them overshadowed by meaningless video games and hours spend wasting precious youth away.

I know high school and teen years aren't supposed to be romanticized, but it hurts...you know? Not to have anything from that huge chunk, the majority of my life, to look back on and smile. Never went on family outings, never got drunk with friends, never had long talks on mountains, never even got in the car after school and just said "drive."

As a result, I'm 19, now longing for that. Longing for connection, for love, for intimacy, for those nights you wish the sun never rose. Growing up in a big city where everything is so hyperfocused on technology and internet, and having parents that believed online connection to be the best way to raise a child, hurts.

When I look back, I just see myself typing away. Posting on reddit (over accounts years ago I've since wiped away.) I never went to a football game- maybe 3 or 4 when I was a senior and it started to hit me. Never went to homecoming dances. I have no friends left from that stage in my life, and nothing to commemorate on it other than hundreds of burner gmail accounts used for different games to make multiple accounts I log into every now and again trying to catch a whiff of nostalgia.

I wonder how it would've been differently if, say, I grew up in a smaller town. Somewhere you could walk and be in the middle of the woods, or at the very least, see mountains in the distance. Somewhere encouraging to adventure, to explore, to run away from perceived threats and laugh and cry and cuddle with newfound high school love in the backseat of a run-down.

I remember telling my old therapist about this feeling a long time ago. He said to let go, and move on towards finding more memories, to actually living out those fantasies, that time isn't out. Now I work, work to live, and it feels like time is speeding by. How long until I'm too old to actually enjoy youth?

I sure as hell don't hate my parents for not pressuring me to go out, to meet people, telling me to stay on the computer. It's not their fault, entirely. Part of being young and dumb is being rebellious, sneaking out, better to ask forgiveness than permission, the whole nine. And I don't hate technology one bit; it doesn't mean I can't question how different things would be if I wasn't glued to my laptop screen at least 5 hours a day, almost every day.

But it just feels like there's an aching hole in my heart, longing to be filled. I can't watch movies any more, TV series, even YouTube. I find it hard to listen to some songs. They all remind me of something that I don't have, and I may never have.

I don't even know how to make those memories, how to do those things. I never really learned how to socialize. I'm a charming extrovert, yet I immediately clam up with anxiety at the prospect at making a deep connection with someone. Every real person I had is gone, by my own destruction or distance or theirs. Every online friend I had has vanished into the binary, never to be seen again aside from a hazy memory of pixels on a screen. I can't touch online dating with a 6 foot barge pole- it just reminds me of that past, and it feels obsolete. I've matched on tinder, talked to people online- it never feels right, real, happy. It just hurts more than it heals, and I become a shell of the person I truly am in person. How the hell does a 19 year old make friends? People would look to me to an answer, but I still haven't the slightest idea.

The most obvious solution to the problem is to, as my therapist said, go out, live that life, just do it. I've been trying to leave this city for months, if not a year, working my ass off and reaping what little savings I can come up with. Everybody always fantasizes about the big city life, but I can't be the only one dreaming of sunsets by a little lake in the mountains, driving down backroads, a simpler time, where the main connection is in laughter and smiles, right?

I really hope to god that I make it out of this town. I don't know where I want to go. I want a start fresh- is that crazy? I want to become a new person, put aside the online bullcrap and just live. Be the kid who I always wanted to be, with nothing holding me down. I wish it was as easy as people say it is. Diabetes sure as hell complicates that.

I just had to get that off my chest. I guess that's what this place is for, right? Thank you for reading, for listening, for commenting. I really appreciate it.