Playing: Lonely by Noah Cyrus.
But can’t someone help me?
Oh, please, someone help me
I don’t care, anyone, anything
Cause I’m so sick of being so lonely
I want to tell a story about the city which introduced me to the demon under my bed.
When I just turned eighteen, I moved to City X alone. I never wanted to move to City X -somehow I’ve always known I’d hate City X but I never knew the extent it would contribute to the downfall of my mental health-, but I had to.
The home I grew up in wasn’t always warm, but it was home, you know? I memorized the streets, the smell of pollution, the traffic lights, the road bumps, and what time and which road to take to avoid traffic. My family and I would fight now and then, friendships fell apart, but they’re -or were- my family. My people. My persons. I knew, despite all, I’d always have their backs.
Then one day I dragged a suitcase thousands of miles away from the only place I’ve called home my entire life, people waved at me in the airport with smiles of “good luck and go get your dreams”, yada yada yada. I smiled back, withstanding the portruding ache in my heart of leaving home to achieve my dreams.
I knew I hated that city the first time I hailed a cab in the airport and the exceptional strong wind breezed through my pink hoodie in early spring. There was this unfamiliar suffocating feeling in my chest as I laid alone in my new room in my stuffy apartment in the suburb of City X with no family and no friend and a whole new foreign city whose language I did not learn to speak until I was fourteen.
That was the night I met my demon, whom, ever since has been residing under every bed I sleep in.
Her name is Loneliness. I call her Lola, just for the fancy sake of it.
Lola crouched next to me that night, waltzing into my life like pretty girl with soundproof little toes that I didn’t hear her coming. She slipped through the cracks in my heart and promised to stay and be my new best friend in this cold-hearted city. My room felt cold when she whispered in my ear that this would be my fate and I can never escape her because she has claw marks around me and I’m hers. She owns me. Lola owns me, and I can’t escape.
Months passed like a daze, I lived my life in City X alone -with Lola, if that counts-. I started having difficulty sleeping and never having enough sleep. I ate dull and cold lunches and dinners alone. I went to get groceries and chased after buses alone with sharp plastic bags biting my skin on a lonely ride home. I took care of my sick self alone, lying on bed with headaches and fever, wishing if only someone -anyone- could buy me food because I had no energy to get to the door to get the food I ordered from UberEats.
Nothing feels lonelier than having to take care of yourself with no help of others.
My demon created a hole in my heart. So big and deep that sometimes I can physically feel it, especially at night.
I tried to patch it up with things and people and just being busy. I started chasing after business and hustle so I could forget the fact that I was lonely, going to events and volunteering and meeting new people and speaking new language. I got busy, I made friends, I went on road trips, visited shady suburbs, chased after pretty sunsets at beaches and tall buildings, went to parties and played beer pongs and Truth or Drink and Seven Minutes in Heaven. It worked for a few months, and for a while I believed I was no longer lonely.
That, until Covid, and the patches to the hole in my heart just ripped off ever so completely that I realized the hole was never truly filled. It is as present as it was the night I met Lola, I just found ways to put layers of band aid over it.
I don’t think I can ever fill the hole in my heart.
City X is mean and cruel and it introduced me what loneliness truly means in a place full of people and laughters and wine and fine arts when my face hurts from smiling at parties and galas with dainty champagne in my hand and red lipstick on my lips while my heart aches for the taste of home I never found in this city.
The people I met swore that “we’re family” yet they’re nowhere to be found when I get chest pain and it hurts to breathe, or when I had a breakdown in a busy train on my way home because a guy scared me to death and no one took my word seriously when I begged them to listen and save me -because you’re a girl and it’s the matter of “he says, she says” and it’s his words against hers and for fuck sake he’s a man-, or when something triggered my past trauma I never truly got over and I had to crawl to the Uber I called to the hospital to get meds for my anxiety because my jaw hurt from clenching that they had to put oxygen mask on me when I couldn’t breathe and when they asked who they should call I‘ve never felt so lonely my entire life.
They said “we’re family” yet Christmas felt so lonely despite the celebration and fancy meals and sparkly decorations and mistletoes and roasted Chicken and endless glasses of champagne -because we just need to fucking get through Christmas- that’s how I know we’re never family. Blood is thicker than water.
They said “we’re family” yet families won’t leave you alone when you had a meltdown in the middle of a shopping centre.
This city introduced me to loneliness and I don’t know if my heart can ever recover from the amount of times it was crushed by this city.
A nice doctor once told me, “other people are not medicine, they can never be”.
I’ve been scared to go to bed. I’ve been scared when the sun sets because darkness reminds me of all the sleepless and lonely nights I spent in this city because I felt so lonely and this city never felt like home. I couldn’t sleep and I couldn’t eat and I couldn’t breathe and I ache for the warmth of home but this city is so cold that my bones hurt.
My thoughts are at war and my mind is a scary place to be.
Lola knows my deepest darkest fear of not being loved enough that the hollowness of my heart makes me disappear into thin air. I’m so scared that if/when I’m gone no one will notice because no one ever loved me enough.
I’m so scared and I’m so lonely and I can’t sleep.
Playing: People Help The People by Birdy
Guess the loneliness came knocking
No one needs to be alone, oh save me
