Fear.

The only reason why I'm worrying so much today is because of my new coffee maker. You see, when I moved houses last month, I went in halfsies with Stephen on a coffee maker because I want to actually be one of those people who makes coffee everyday as a breakfast-like kickoff to a structured, mature day. Or, at least, I want to be the guy who can offer potential guests a hypothetical beverage to put on the coffee table that I've now had at three different residences and never really used for coffee before.

When we got the machine, Stephen went and bought these expensive, small packs of flavored coffee. Being economical and assuming that I'd use the damn machine more often for a more structured life if I planned for it, I bought a giant vat of Maxwell House for roughly the same price. I love Maxwell House. Some people at my old office used to despise it, wanting whoever brewed it to label the carafe "MAXWELL HOUSE" every time it was made so that unsuspecting coffee fans wouldn't accidentally find themselves with a mouth full of Maxwell. (I refused to kowtow to their ridiculous carafe-labelling demands. Now, I don't work there, so the people at my old office can go drink Folger's and fuck themselves.)

Thus, because I went into this new coffee maker endeavor with expectations, I now make approximately eight cups worth of Maxwell House every time I brew a pot at my new place, and I'm the only one who drinks it. I offer it to Stephen, but he drinks the gourmet stuff and is trying to cut back on his caffiene anyway. (He tells me I don't have to brew eight cups worth of coffee every time I make coffee, but it seems like a waste of a filter and electricity and personal effort to only brew two cups when I could just as easily grab a Coke Zero from the fridge.)

So instead, every time I make coffee at my new place, I end up with a racing heart, uncontrollable panic attacks and an overactive bladder. I drank eight cups of coffee this afternoon. And now it's 4:30 in the morning, and I decided to write this rather than watch THE BLOB through TCM On Demand because, damn it, I'm gonna be awake for a while.

So my old roommate and I had the walk-through of the old house today (or, considering the time, yesterday), and I got stuck in traffic on the way there and pretty much missed my landlord telling my old roommate that he needs to replace the carpet in her old room, that my old room needs vaccuumed again and that I'd not cleaned out the kitchen junk drawer that I swear I thought I had cleaned out. My old roommate told me this when I got there, and the messy drawer was open. So she told me to clean it out, so I did. And I had her check it to make sure. Because I felt like a jackass and a dumbass and a child and a disappointment and an asshole and a fool and a headache all at the same time. (Lately, I feel like that every time I talk to my old roommates because each conversation seems to dance around and toy with the notion that I'm an evil villain who failed them, which may in fact be true. But it's not completely true. Not in complete context, anyway. And it's probably worrying me more than it's worrying anybody else, and I'd be better served by getting over it and moving on with my life. But there's always something left to do or worry about. It's a junk drawer, it's a vaccuum job that requires three separate drives to the house, it's a phone call to the city to see that the trash gets picked up. It's a phone call to an old roommate - whose butt answers his phone in his pocket while he's talking to someone about how I moved out. And those worries put me there, in my head, the guy who's still failing them.)

You know what I'm really afraid of? That lots of people don't like me for good reason, and those people all gather and bitch about me. And they're right.

(And I'm usually not so paranoid, unreasonable or self-centered to think that these gatherings are planned, unless the eight cups of coffee hammer away at the metaphorical xylophone of my emotions.)

I've been afraid of being unliked for a while. Now knowing that it's a stupid waste of time to worry about such a thing - and that I'd be better served by working harder - doesn't stop the insecurity from coming far too often.

(I know the move and some other problems are what's REALLY bothering me. But it's manifesting in my head as this whiny "Why don't you LIKE me?" on a loop.)

I'd be better off leaving silly fears and insecurities aside. And I've known that for a while.

But I had people who loved me. And I loved them. And now they don't love me. And my feelings for them have changed. And that makes me sad. It's necessary, it's progress, it's a change for the better. But I regret the loss. I regret that people are hurt. I don't feel so good about everything myself. I made mistakes.

I moved in because I wanted to be happier. So I moved in and became happier. And I stayed while I was happy with staying. And I left when I was unhappy and saw the chance to be happy somewhere else.

And no matter how polite or liked or "on good terms" I want to be, I have to just go, leave the old house behind and move on.