Late

There are so many gradations of loneliness. As an introvert, I've had that inexplicable longing to be with people--as long as I don't have to interact too heavily. As long as I can just be around them, knowing they love me, and soak it up, much like a cat does in a pool of sunlight. It's harder to find here, but still possible. I enjoy so many of the people, and I'm slowly feeling more and more like some of them are becoming mine. I've missed that.

There's also the loneliness that drove me out into the dark on so many nights, way back when, sitting on curbs by the gym or swinging in a deserted playground. The one that misses someone to touch souls with--someone who recognizes you as what they've looked for, and loves what they see. I didn't even know the source of that lonesomeness until it was met and matched--and that is beautiful in itself.

But this kind is different. This one I can't get away from, this soul-deep, aching isolation. My roomie is sitting across the living room, and it still feels like I'm the only one for a hundred miles. I just spent a few minutes with my boyfriend, and I left his house feeling like I was still solitary, in some far unreachable place. The few precious minutes I got to talk to my sister were wonderful, but they were too short, and when I hung up I felt like I'd only scratched the surface of so many things I wanted to share.

Fear isolates. I'm afraid of what's expected of me, and that I won't be able to handle it. That I will fail to do what I need to do. And I isolate myself because of that fear. My support system is either back on the east coast and sound asleep, or here and in the middle of the same stresses and problems that I am in. So what you get is a sad, pathetic girl who cries herself to sleep because she can't convince herself that there is anybody else alive in the world.