Alone?

The boy is alone.

The group is full of laughter and everyone is enjoying it, even the boy, yet he is alone.  He doesn’t know it. He would never admit if he did know.  Because no one wants to be alone.

So as the group laughs in its game of late night Apples to Apples, the boy joins in.  He accepts the general feelings of inclusion and well being as his own.  As the game continues, he plays with grace and good will, always friendly, always eager to join the jokes.  It seems to work.  He laughs and they laugh with him.  Companionship is acknowledged with no real connection.  The feelings are all on the surface, prepared to blow away with the slightest gust.  That gust turns out to be the end of the game. 

Goodbyes are said, people head to their rooms, the group splits. The boy sits in his place, smiling and waving as they leave until he is the last.  Still he sits there with a smile on his face.  A smile of good times remembered, for now that is all he has.

He doesn’t stay for long.  Tomorrow is family day and his will be spending the whole day with him.  They will arrive early, so he needs a few hours of sleep, at least.

His room is dark, lit only by the streetlamp shining through the blinds.  He lies in bed, staring at the ceiling, waiting for slumber.  The moments before sleep are the clearest moments of life.  It is the time he sees everything in his life, good and bad, and cannot escape it.  The naked truth is difficult to accept.  The truth he sees now is the truth he refused to see before.  He is alone.  Terribly alone.  And even now he will not accept it.  He pushes it away and reasons that is natural for this time, that there is nothing wrong. This allows him to drop into sleep.

He wakes the next morning, refreshed and reassured.  As he heads to the shower, life looks much brighter than it had the previous night.  Why shouldn’t it?  His family is coming today.  In fact, they will arrive in a mere hour. 

After the shower, he eats breakfast, taking his time and enjoying the warm and pleasant morning.  His phone vibrates with a message informing him that his family has arrived.  He meets them in the parking lot with much joy, for what is better than reuniting with family after months of separation?  Not much, the boy realizes, not much.

They spend the day wandering the campus, enjoying each other’s company.  The boy teases his younger sister and jokes with his older.  He staves off the many questions of his mother and attempts to reassure her on countless issues, smiling all the while.  For what was once annoying has become something that simply displays affection.  He smiles, content with those he loves.

The day passes quickly.  Conversation, lunch, games, and time all slip by.  It ends too soon.  His family must return home—to his home, the place of his childhood that will always be home.  And he must stay behind.  He walks with them back to the car, quietly reflecting.  When they arrive, he hugs each of them, perhaps a little longer than usual.  They climb into the car, pull out, and drive away.

He watches the car until it is out of his view and trudges back to his dorm.  Night has come again and it is dark.  The brightness is gone.  He reaches his dorm, pauses outside the door and looks up at the black sky.  It is then that he truly realizes it.  It is then that he accepts it.

The boy is alone.

Is this you?  Is it me?  I don't know.  Do you?  Perhaps, when you read this, all you can think is "how can anyone be alone here?"  If that is your thought, I'm happy for you.  Continue, enjoy, have fun.  On the other hand, if you read this and found yourself nodding, I'm still happy for you.  You are self-aware.  This can be a good thing, as long as you want it to be.  Your worst enemy is yourself, so be a friend instead.

Me?  Well, it's up to you to decide what I am.  If, by reading this and other posts by me, you can decide who I am, feel free.  The conclusions you reach may be accurate, or wildly off target.  I honestly cannot tell you what conclusion you might reach, or even if you reach the correct ones.  Life is constantly changing, and I constantly change with it.  All I can tell you is that I am not the same person as when I came.  Nor, I would hope, are you.

Enjoy your time.  You aren't getting it back.