There’s a sort of horror in sitting by yourself at three in the morning or night, whichever way you put it. To me, it depends on whether one is still trying to sleep or if they’ve already given up. As soon as you give up, it’s morning.
The horror is not unlike the short walk back home from the nearest bar when the feeling of utter loneliness hits you as you dread opening the door to your little palace of one. For the fifteen minutes you take to get back home, you think about how chores are waiting for you, but more than that, there’s the silence that is going to welcome you with open arms and engulf you in the closest thing to a hug you’ve felt in a while.
It’s utterly terrifying but by the time you reach the door, you’ve almost convinced yourself that it’s not the first time you’ll open the door to nothingness; that it wasn’t going to be the last; and at least, it was your nothingness. There was a solace in being uniquely lonely.
Everyone was lonely in a slightly different way, and for some, there was belongingness in their own way to be alone. I was like that, too. I’d hope there were others. It would be devastatingly lonely if there was just one who felt this way. As is the case with most things we feel though, there never is just one person feeling something.
In any case, coming back to the current moment from this tiny detour of a confession that won’t end, I’ve been in a sort of haze lately. I can’t remember why I do what I do. For the life of me, there’s no memory. There’s only this endless reflection of myself spread over the mirror of similar years, all facing each other. I seem to have reinvented myself a thousand times over only to learn I am who I have always been.
I have always sat by myself. I have always walked by myself. I reckon I’ve always been tired, too. I don’t remember a second of my life feeling otherwise. Perhaps, this is the very first time, I am genuinely tired of myself though. It’s the first time I’m tired of it all.
There’s a horror in sitting by yourself, working on something at four in the night, but there is comfort too; at least, there used to be. Perhaps, it was when I wasn’t so exhausted of everyone I’ve ever been.