1000 words on life and loneliness

You remember being a young boy in your parent’s car. You had a headache that day and were given an Advil. This is the first time you can remember having a non chewable medication. You played around with it in your mouth, the texture reminding you of candy, but it did not crack when you gently bit down on it. That headache was not your first, but it will be one of many that you will experience.

You are 12 years old and taking a home economics class in middle school. A saying you remember from the teacher of that class is that it was not national pick on you day. Another was that they’re not laughing at you, but with you. You do not believe that. You remember a girl saying without any hesitation that she could never date you. You were sitting at the lunch table as those around you were having that conversation. You ignore or laugh it off, having no other response you could provide.

You will sometimes lie down in the school nurse’s office. You usually have a headache, but sometimes you will use that as an excuse to temporarily get out of class. You are 13 years old in a band class and the teacher is not present. One of your tormentors from home economics is also in this class with you. You are being held down underneath a chair, your glasses on the ground beside you. You remember some of the shirts he would wear. You still have a negative association with the Stussy brand. Before middle school ends you will no longer regularly ride the bus to school.

You think back to previous times you were alone. It did not always have to be that way, but you never realized it in the moment. Your imagination would fail you in these times. You remember being the 14 year old boy who was confused when your classmate kept slipping her arm around yours, unsure of what to make of it, but ever on watch for another way your classmates and those who say they are your friends will mock you. You are the same boy who only later, in another place, begins to feel he understands.

You would become well practiced at maintaining a stoic expression. You walk into your high school, ignoring the senior that starts walking next to you, mocking how you walk to his friends. You stand with a group of people in the morning and are pressured to say a particular sentence they find funny to hear from you. If he gets you to say it, he will then laugh. His house is one of the few you visit. Indifference will become your defense. Your goal will be to not give them the satisfaction of a reaction. You will not always succeed at this.

You do not attend the post graduation party for your high school class. Graduation is the last time you will see most of them. You are at your college because you needed to put space between you and where you grew up. After your freshman year of college you will have made no effort to keep in touch with anyone you grew up with. You were never one of them in any sense that mattered.

You are in college when the illusion that harassment was in your past ended. You had taken a picture and placed it on a website for rating attractiveness. You were craving validation from others. You do not react well when you begin getting harassed online by people at your college that you do not know. You are angry. Angry at them. Angry at the friend who gave them your contact information. Above all, angry at yourself. Angry that you made yourself vulnerable. Angry because you believe you can’t admit to having desires without being mocked. Angry that you’re still the same boy who just wants to be liked. Lacking the discipline to adequately study you will change your major by the end of that semester. You will also struggle with that decision.

Eventually you start thinking about the kind of person that you want to be. Deciding the things you will choose to truly value. Years later a former classmate will reach out to you to apologize. You talk with him briefly, he describes what has led him to come to regret actions he took in the past. You give him the measure of forgiveness that he was looking for, you too are no longer that same child.

You may or may not be depressed. You were once told that you may have chronic mild depression. You often feel it doesn’t matter. The loneliness you often feel is more immediately on your mind. Sometimes you will crave someone to talk to or the presence of another person. You are surprised when you have gone months without talking to anyone outside of work. You talk to people on the Internet, but it’s not always fulfilling.

You spend a lot of time thinking about loneliness. You are aware of the effects of loneliness, but still struggle to adapt to that knowledge. You know that you are sensitive to anything that you could interpret as a negative social cue. Your responses are dictated by an assumed rejection. Sometimes you are aware of how your instincts mislead you. You can feel how you took something as a rejection. Sometimes you are able to react positively.

This night could be any night. You are sitting at your desk. The room is cold and you wrap yourself in a blanket. You start singing along to the song playing on your speakers. Softly at first, but a little louder as the song continues. Your voice trails off to a whisper as the song begins to end. There is a truth in these moments. It is your truth, slightly sad and often lonely. It is in its own way uniquely yours, and in the end that is enough.