To be alone

Sitting here in a silent room, I have to wonder: What does it mean to be alone? If there are four walls around me and no other person, am I alone? If there is no one to kiss me goodnight and wish me "Sweet dreams", am I alone? If I lost that person, the one I could always turn to, always talk to, no matter the problem or the time of night, am I alone? If there is not one single person out there in this vast world thinking of me at this moment, then, oh then I must be alone. But then again, if we're alone aren't we in this together? Does not each of us look up at the same moon each night, murky behind a sea of cloud but ever steady? Do we not all marvel at the same burning stars as the same thoughts burn in our minds? If we breathe the same air and drink the same water, do we let go the same sighs and cry the same tears? Do we all feel the same pain? Sitting here in the dark, I feel less alone, but I must admit, I don't feel much better. For how can I take joy in the sadness of others?

Loneliness

As I drift away to a place of oblivion, pictures of you flash behind my closed eyes. A glimpse of your teasing smile, a flicker of your gentle hands. Every night I gasp for a breath of you as I drown in my loneliness. I fill my lungs with thoughts of the laughter we shared, the happiness we felt. But reality hits like a wave crushing a sandcastle on the beach, dragging my moment of peacefulness away to sea, and I float into darkness. I dream of you walking back into my life, looking at me the way you used to. You whisper in my ear and send tingles through my spine as your fingertips brush my cheek and run through my hair. But the tide rises and the ocean spits me back onto the rough shores. My eyes blink in the unforgiving sunlight and you’re gone. Every morning you’re ripped away from me.

Home

Life starts out so simple. At a young age we start to learn words: mommy, daddy, yes, no, home. Home? At the time, it’s very simple. Home is where Mom and Dad are. Home is the house where all our toys are. Home is the twin bed with Disney sheets we climb into every evening. At a certain point we become aware of feelings that we associate with home, though we can’t quite understand them. Home is safety, consistency, comfort. Home is the most important place in the whole world.

But years pass at unimaginable speeds and the day comes that each of us moves away from home. We don’t just leave behind a building. We don’t just leave behind our parents, possessions and childhood bedroom; we leave behind security, we leave behind confidence. We have no more refuge. We may have a dorm room or even a trendy apartment, but we are homeless. We experience the feelings of “home” in other ways. We are home when we’re surrounded by old friends, laughing so hard it hurts. We are home when we’re in the arms of the person we love most in this world. But what happens when these friends leave? What happens when the one you love betrays you (as they always will)? What happens when you find yourself sitting in an empty room staring at a fuzzy television screen? What happens when you crawl into a cold bed at the end of a trying day and have no one to kiss away your tears? The idea of “home” is so fleeting. We feel it for an instant and then it’s lost, leaving us more alone than ever. Home is still the most important place in the world, but we’ll spend the rest of our lives searching for it.

We should all be responsible for our own happiness. We rely too much on external things, and then the world disappoints and people are sad.