(by Miss Melancholy and picture by Eliana Radaelli)
To all the lonely people
I don’t know where you are at this very moment. How are you feeling? I’m sitting in front of my computer screen in my room, typing this sentence. It is an oddly quiet night in my flat. I suppose it is a Monday. After the chaos that washes over Covent Garden every weekend, it feels almost solemn in comparison.
There have been many times over the last couple of months when I’ve felt empty. I’ve grown increasingly afraid of spending any time in my own company. Being with anyone – anyone at all – would be better than listening to my idle thoughts. I can detect every tick, every fluctuation of my mood.
Time gently slips through our fingers when we are busy, doesn’t it? It ticks away when I’m climbing up the spiral staircase of the library; sprinting to my classes on Kingsway just as they are about to start; chewing on my Pret baguette and throwing the packaging in the bin. Things I do; things I enjoy; things I despise; things I mull over… All feel somewhat inconsequential without the presence of other people. Sometimes I forget why I do the things that I do.
What’s missing? Perhaps I want to feel the pulse of a bustling community; the cheer of excitement; the harmonising wave of the common human experience; the vibrating warmth of a jovial crowd. The cheapest way to scratch that itch is, of course, by guzzling an obscene amount of alcohol. Then you feel at once numb and ecstatic, as if seeing the world from the eyes of a kid – everything and everyone is new, stimulating, and infinitely lovable.
You feel warm and messy, loud even, ready to give life the biggest kiss from the bottom of your heart. You indulge yourself in an alcohol-induced frenzy, with everyone around you pushing and shoving, dancing like an idiot, sweating profusely in the natural furnace of the club. You open your half-closed eyes and look towards the ceiling past the guy you have been dancing and holding the entire night… Oh live that student life.
I don’t know if this is why I drink, why I go clubbing, why I go on dates, why I hook up with people without getting to know them properly beforehand. How do you cope with that emptiness, my dear? What is the cure? I don’t really know. I’ve been trying to sit through those phases, convincing myself I will wake up to a better mood. It comes and goes. Most of the time I get so caught up in the pace of life, it shrinks into itself and evaporates. There are moments in my day when I feel whole, blessed, warm, and genuinely happy. I laugh and feel… whole. Maybe this is just the ups and downs life has to offer. So be it.
It will brighten up when it wants to. Hug your friend, go out and get some air. It will get better, I promise.
