I no longer want to be alone

I have found myself walking away from so much this year. I have left behind hands that held mine a little too tightly. I’ve cried over the body of someone I never got to know. My father's lungs have been deteriorating for almost a year now and the possibility of losing him is still one I refuse to face. I openly turned away from the eyes of people who cared because I couldn’t be bothered to ease the helplessness they felt towards a mass crushing my father’s heart. I haven’t hugged my mother since my father’s diagnoses. I can’t bare the thought of collapsing into her arms and admitting I’m not strong enough. In that scenario the greatest weakness I could have ever imagined was needing someone. I wanted to be better. Stronger. Is it fucked up to believe isolation is some kind of ultimate strength? I craved the touch of someone whose eyes used to hurt for me whenever we were in the same room. We said all the right things at all the wrong times. I gave him the space I thought he needed while I was left wanting something he couldn’t give. He’d pull me back when it was convenient, and I didn't mind. He made me believe there might be something worth holding on to. He told me- well, I guess it doesn’t matter what he said. I could say any number of things; that doesn’t make them true. He’s the one person I hadn’t tried to push away, but he was already gone. I remember the start of this year. I was optimistic. Hopeful. Excited even. I hadn’t known what I was wishing for; but I was wishing wholeheartedly and unregrettably. I wouldn’t say that it got me anywhere. Well, it got me crying uncontrollably on a yellowed linoleum floor, wishing again. Just this time a little more aggressively. I isolated myself. I gave myself distractions and excuses to ignore my pain and the pain I saw in the eyes of others. I was selfish. I knew it, too. I could feel the distance growing between myself and from my surroundings. I made a choice to limit the amount of hurt I experienced and, in those months, it felt so good to feel nothing.

It felt so right to be alone.