Alone

The ticking of a small corporate clock intermittently breaks the silence that fills every recess of my apartment where I sit, quietly contemplating my life. Leaves drift slowly from the treetops lining the courtyard in front of my balcony attesting to the fleeting time that I find myself in. Youth, vibrant and vital, rolls steadily away from me as the tide on a summer's night. I watch it from where I sit, almost as one watches a crab scurry hurriedly from dune to dune, always close, always fleeting, almost in reach and always five steps ahead. To say I sit in this room alone and pity my rapidly fading youth would be rather cliche. I cannot pity my life, my choices, my actions or non-actions. I cannot pity my solitude or my lack of a social network. I am solitary by nature. When I have a pack, it is small. When it grows to large, I tend to roam. I both love and hate the solitude I experience. I look upon it as an old friend, comfortable and understanding. I also view it as a static, clinging force always offering me more company, but always pulling me further from it.

There are some days where I want so badly to walk up to someone...anyone...and thwart myself headfirst into deep conversation. I see groups socializing, and start to say something, but never can quite get the words out. Instead, I retreat. I crawl back into my comfortable solitude, always hoping, always wishing that maybe someday I could be part of someone's circle too. I lack the ability to talk about myself with people, usually even close people. When I do break down and do this, I find it cathartic for the duration, but often leave feeling empty, misunderstood, and ignored. Somedays, I want someone, anyone, to understand me so badly that every fiber of being aches with the longing.

I sit and as the sun begins its steady descent to the earth, accompanied by the rhythmic ticking of the clock above my door, aware that this will always be my fate. I accept it as I always have with a certain calm understanding that society was not made for people like me.