hello, i am mary horowitz.

my entire life i knew i was different. odd. weird. different sense of humor. different sense of being. i never felt like i belonged anywhere. with anyone. i still feel that way in a lot of areas. i don't have many friends and the ones i do have don't contact me...it's always me contacting them. it's always 1-sided with me. and when i try to reach out to aquaintances, i seem to only get polite responses back. or no response. it makes me feel lost. am i needy? do i come off that way? maybe it's just that they already have their "people" in their life and they don't need another friend/person.

when i was little i played mostly to myself. my sisters were much older, my brother was not anywhere near interested in being social. i was too young to have many friends and my mother didn't keep house well so i was forbidden to invite neighborhood friends to our home. it was cluttered and unkempt, infested with roaches and a messy smelly dog that got more attention than i ever did. i'd play in my room or annoy my sisters, subconciously pleading for someone to give me their time. i poured my heart and soul into others, hoping they'd see how awesome i was so that they'd like me or want to spend time with me.

i remember spending a lot of time in the bathroom after everyone would fall asleep. i'd line their pictures up on the mirror and i'd turn my head this way and that way...trying to figure out who i looked like. i looked like no one. i felt so lost and so alone.

so i did what i thought any normal kid would do when they don't understand something. i smiled. i pretended. and i got so use to doing this that my mask eventually attached itself to me and i wore it everywhere i went. and my mask felt good, because i felt nothing.