I can’t remember a time when I didn’t struggle with feeling alone. No club, sport or friend group could build bonds strong enough to last more than a few months or a couple of years if I was lucky.
I held onto hope like a lifeline that college would be different for me; that maybe, just maybe, I would finally have a place where I felt like I belonged.
I still feel alone.
I bury myself in work and books to escape what I feel is my reality. After all, if I don’t have time to think, I can’t focus on the loneliness.
Tackling this feeling is like climbing a mountain without prior training — overwhelming and arduous, but not impossible. Logically, I am aware of the people who support me, but they do not exist in the emotional well I so often drown in.
Learning to lean on people rather than self-isolating after being independent is an ongoing effort. I fear my sadness is a contagious feeling I do not want to spread.
The continuous endeavor of becoming my own best friend has been an uphill battle from the day I finally decided I wanted to stop feeling like this. I still don’t see the end in sight, and I fear I never will. It would be so easy to sink back down to the bottom of the hill and stay there. I don’t feel I’m very far up anyway, but I know the feeling would only fester and grow.
I would still feel alone.
As I continue my metaphorical climb, I learn new things about myself. I enjoy reading as an escape, yes, but also as a way to wind down from my hectic schedule. I love to travel, not because I am running from my loneliness, but because I am searching for myself, taking pieces from different places and creating a new me with a new outlook. I want to nurture my relationships with family and friends because they should know they can depend on me if they ever feel how I have felt.
There are days — more often than I care to admit — when I burrow into myself because I feel it is comfortable, familiar and somehow safer than reality. Those are the times when I try to reframe my worldview with a more logical lens and rely on those I trust. I now know how to tell who will be sticking around.
I have never been alone.
