Getting older all alone is crushing me. I expected it to be rough but I didn't imagine quite how rough it would get.
Everywhere I go, the intense awareness of being alone is there with me. It's in the air when I'm at work and my coworkers start discussing their kids or their girlfriends or their wives. It's a pressure in my head when I walk past a park on the street and hear kids excitedly showing things to their parents. It's under the skin on my face when I get rejected or softly let down again, trapping any tears that may form before they come out.
I can forget about it sometimes. When I get deeply into my work, when I'm exercising, when I dive into escapism. It always comes back, though. I had to have some surgery and needed someone around to just handle things while I was incapacitated and there was no one. I was putting a new piece of furniture together in my living room and someone's hands to hold something steady and there was just me. When I had a shitty day I needed someone to come home to and all I found when I opened my front door were the pillows on my couch. And when I find something good and want to share it, or when I experience something beautiful and want someone else to see it too, there's no one.
I saw a picture recently that carried the caption "guys who don't experience sweetness in their youth never do." I think that might be true. I don't know where to go from here but I think no matter which direction I take I'll find that it's cold and barren.