I’ve always considered myself lucky. I have a house, a loving family, loving friends, etc, so forth. I don’t mention to anyone that there are days when I would just throw it all away for a chance at something different. That I am unbearably and painfully lonely at times, when I’m surrounded by people. That more than once I have shed tears over the four walls and dusty ceiling that keep me imprisoned in this “perfect” town. That the reason I don’t want to learn how to drive isn’t because I don’t think we have the money for a car, but because I know that if I get behind the wheel, I won’t stop driving until I’m far enough away that I can’t hear the cries of my family when they realize I’m gone.


Yes, I’m lucky, if you count feeling like I’m slowly dying inside lucky. It’s not the abject loneliness of a freshman girl who just broke up with her first “real” boyfriend. Or the cry of a small child, alone again because her parents are too busy or too drunk to realize she exists. Well, maybe it is that, and more. I’ve never had a boyfriend, and that itself is a different kind of loneliness. The kind that stops me from ever knowing what it feels like to have someone hold me close and comfort me, in a way no parent could. The cry of a child becomes the cry of a teen, desperately wanting to hold onto childhood, while being thrust into adulthood by unforgiving adults and friendly expectations. It’s the pain that comes from another night alone in front of the TV, watching unrealistic crime dramas and musing on where I’m going to end up in life. It’s the last thought before I surrender to sleep, when I finally put my weary mind to rest and succumb to the obliviousness that the darkness provides. It’s also what makes me cry some mornings, when I’m dragged back into that unforgiving harsh of morning, to start the cycle all over again and smile through the pain.


It’s what keeps me from just ending it all. The hope that life will get better. That one day I’ll wake up and actually be glad to be alive and the sun will shine and I’ll laugh and it will be perfect. Perfection is something I long ago gave up on, but I hear it’s not completely unobtainable. Just ask a new mother or a proud father. Maybe one day, I’ll have my own kind of perfection and the loneliness will fade away. The more cynical part of me says that I will never truly be happy. That what I feel right now is what I will feel every damn day for the rest of my life. However, I can’t believe that. Humans were made to exist on this earth, and to live in and around and on and under and through it. If I’m not supposed to be here, then why am I here? Sometimes, that is the only thought that sustains me, on the days when the darkness seems the worst. I will always fight the battle in my heart and soul against the loneliness, and one day, I’ll win.