On Lonliness and Growing Up

I don't think you truly realize how alone you are until you're 18, 19, maybe even 20. It takes coming home to a dorm room (or an apartment) and realizing you have no one to call, no one to talk to about your day or to comfort you. You are left alone completely with yourself - no distractions. That's when you put on the music really loud (screw your sleeping neighbors) or watch TV or DVDs (or if you're really brave you could try reading).

And you long for a connection. You long for companionship that doesn't seem to exist, or is fleeting, or is unstable. All your relationships are somehow new, even with old friends. They stand unsteadily - legs wobbling with inexperience. We're all noobz to put it in internet terms.

At this time it's best not to withdraw as much as you ache to just curl up into a little ball and give up. Make those relationships stand confidently. Push past the awkwardness, push past the insecurities. I don't know how I'm advising anything because I'm still experiencing it all myself.

I just know that being alone is hard. So don't push away the few people who are trying to be your friends.

Today as I was walking along 10th street past this church the little kids were out playing and there was this one little boy - waifish, pale, and thin - who stared at me in the most honest way. I waved and he didn't even seem to notice me. He was perfect.

I miss Jon. I miss Jon. I miss Jon. There I said it. When some one takes over your thoughts for almost three years it's hard to get them out of there. It's hard, man.

This year has been hard. Things aren't going to be easy anymore. You can't rely on your mommy to make it all better or even to be able to try any longer. You can't rely on anyone. You can barely even rely on yourself. Over this year I have questioned every aspect of myself. I sit in bed at times just analyzing every facet of my personality and all my actions. I ponder my adolescence and try to trace through time how everything got this way.

And you know what I've found is really that it's all pretty random. Life is chaos. A chaos we are always trying to categorize and control. I want to be out of control. I want someone to tell me the way and for me to "see the light." It happened a bit today. I was sitting in a Brooklyn loft with guys (thank the Lord I was with actual boys for once), drinking a beer and listening to all the conversations when the guy next to me says something. "What?" I ask. And he answers, "If you drop out of NYU, you should go to Portland." It felt so right. Perhaps I'll go to school there so that people can't say I'm ruining my life but I can't stay here in NYC. One girl I'd been friends with at the beginning of the year says she thinks that I'm the kind that will travel, be in a lot of places. It may be true and if I'm miserable here I might as well leave. Start over. Beginnings are the best. Another one of the boys told me that transferring was one of the best things that ever happened to him.

I have to live for myself. I'm not here for myself anymore. I'm here to hold up an image, to make people proud or to prove them wrong. But fuck everyone. Right?

Also, this is my dream bike. I see it in various places on 10th street.