Loneliness

Dear Soul:

I feel so lonely. It’s not something new, it has always been like this. Since I remember, I always felt lonely. It’s a heavy feeling that grabs your heart and, if you feel it very deeply, you cannot even breathe. It’s something I carry with me. I usually ignore it, just to survive. I got very used to it and these last years it doesn’t affect me so much. It’s just what it is. But today I felt it again. My heart felt like stone, like someone grabbed it with his hand and tried to crush it.

I was very happy when I was a child. Specially when I was a very young child. As I was growing, life was getting darker and heavier. I think I started to feel lonely when I was 9 years old. My brother took me to a holiday association, where kids had activities to spend their free time. I had to make friends there, but everybody had their friends already. Besides, they were older than me. So I was alone. The young boys and girls taking care of the kids were so worried about me, cause I was alone. This made me feel worse. Everybody was on their own and I was doing wrong cause I should get friends and I couldn’t do it. 

At school, people were acting the same. They had their own groups and I couldn’t find friends easily. Nevertheless, there was a girl in the same situation I was. She was my friend, at least I believed this. We did a lot of things together, we make jokes and we spend good times. Till one day. She was worried cause the others were ignoring us. I knew this, but at least we had each other. But she said she was spending time with me cause she couldn’t relate to other people. This hurt me so much. I thought she was spending good times with me as I was spending good times with her. But she said this as she hated to be with me. I couldn’t understand it. She could be alone, just ignore me if she was spending bad times in my company. But she was with me all the time hating me.

I also felt alone in my family. My brother and sisters were a lot older than me, so they had their own issues and I was a child. So I was at my own pace. My parents always seem to have more important things than me. Everything was more important than me. Tasks at the countryside, tasks at home, everything important but me. Even when I burnt my hand in a little fire in the kitchen, my family left me alone to do their tasks at the countryside. I had to make my bed and take care of me and, furthermore, I had to go to the countryside to help them as I could. With my burnt hand. I couldn’t do very much, but the tasks were more important than my health. I was 17 years old back then. There were old people in my family, and then my first niece was born, and everybody ignored me to take care of them. I could understand it somehow, but I felt so alone. My dad was working all day, my mother was worried about a lot of people but me, my brother and sisters were having good times with their teenage friends.

I made new friends in my new school when I was a teenager, but the situation was the same. I had always to be the one calling them to go out, they never called me. One of my new friends payed a lot of attention to boys and she forgot about me all the time. The other friend was always so silent. I was always talking to her about things, always suggesting things we could do, always calling her. She did nothing at all, even when she had no other best friend than me. 

When I was at university, I tried again to make friends. My roommate had a lot of class friends, and I tried to speak to a lot of people. My roommate was always with her friends and my classmates had their own friends too to be with so I was alone again. I was very sick because of my skin problem so I spent a lot of time alone at home, cause it itched me very much and I felt so uncomfortable.

My family and friends ignored me, but also the boys. Whenever I payed attention to a boy, he was always focused on another girl (or even a boy, one of them was gay). Besides, I didn’t like very much their behaviors with girls. It seems they are always using them for sex.

I found happiness inside myself, tough. Most of days I just spent time with myself and my dreams and I feel very good. Maybe these are the only good moments I can find. When I am dreaming, I feel free. I have a very powerful imagination. I don’t care if I can make it turn into reality or not cause just dreaming feels very well. It makes me forget about how lonely I am. I can even create my own friends and couple with my imagination, and by doing this I don’t feel alone anymore.

Just sometimes, like today, I realize the truth again and I feel the hand shaking my heart again. Sometimes I cry alone. Sometimes it’s hard to breathe.

But I forget it and I keep dreaming.