I’m having a real issue making a choice between going to MinamiCon in March or not going.

I’ll be honest, I haven’t enjoyed going to conventions or anything for a very long time. A couple of years or more. I didn’t enjoy Ayacon, wound up in tears several times and put serious thought into going home on Friday and Saturday. Frankly, as soon I I arrived on the Thursday I wanted to go home. I felt nervous and unwelcome the entire weekend and wanted to burst into tears every ten minutes.

MinamiCon that year was pretty much the same. I felt like I didn’t belong there and had no business being there and I get the feeling that this year will be exactly the same. The Amecon the year before was the same, where I cried a lot and felt like a waste of space, and then the big summer convention the year before… Amecon, I think? Or maybe Aya… which ever it was, was where everything started. Walking into a room where a group of your friends are and trying to join in a conversation only to be jostled out of it when someone bigger and better comes into the room… it makes a person with already incredibly low self esteem feel even worse about themselves.

The only reason I’m considering going to Minami is because I don’t have to pay for registration, there are a few people I want to see and Rich is going too. But what else is there? Rich will ditch me as soon as we get there in favor of his friends - again - and the only time I’ll get with him will undoubtedly be invaded by his friends like at Ayacon. I’ll be left to my own devices, which normally I guess wouldn’t be a problem. But it is. I’ve been out of the ‘cosplay circuit’ for a long time and I don’t feel like I fit in or belong anywhere.

I used to have the photography and that was fun. But I haven’t picked up my camera in months and now everyone with a DSLR or a point-and-click comes into the photography room and snaps away. I find people always prefer the photos taken by other people to my own anyway, so the taking of photos and the post editting I do (which takes me a good few hours on a small batch) feels like a complete waste of my time. I don’t contribute anything to the community any more and I feel utterly useless and out of place whenever I go to a convention.

I’ve got about a month to decide, but I’m really struggling. Being here in Basingstoke I am lonely as fuck. I don’t know anyone apart from the people I work with. I want to be able to make plans for my future. Figure out what I’m going to do, where I’m going to live, in what direction my life is heading. But at the moment I feel like I have nothing. Its like floating in water with no land in sight, ergo no direction in which to head.

In short, I feel like I’m a complete and total failure.

There, end emotional purge.