Long-lost Relic Called Aloneness
It is almost midnight and I cannot, for the life of me, recall how many days I have spent indoors.
Sunlight, the kind that often reminds you that the day is starting, only grazes my skin every now and then. I do not see clouds very often these days—very unlike during the days when I worked at the office where I could gaze at those clouds passing by while sipping my favourite blend of iced americano. My eyebrows have yet been waxed and powdered, while my lips has only been kissed by teacup rims and petroleum jelly. My bed is under constant undone, it no longer expects me to greet it with gentle hum after a long day at work, nor have I happily burrow myself on it during the evening while reading fanfiction. My lingerie sets are now nestled silently, gathering dust, while watching their modest siblings are taken out in rotation. My raincoat is no longer constantly dripping with water, now it is hung in my closet with some of my favourite knitted sweaters—echoes of cloth hangers bumping on each other became its current companion, no longer the drip drip drop pattering sounds of tropical rain.
Being holed up at home is not something unfamiliar to me, the aloneness that comes with it is not either. It came gently, as if testing the waters, querying whether or not I still remember it. Truly, I do still remember it. Its disappearance was not too long ago, however this time, it sits quietly in all the corners and nooks and crannies of my brain that I rarely look at. This time, it shapeshifts into untranslatable longing that I hope could make its way from the cable of my earphone to my beloved's veins whenever he and I are on the phone. This time, it weaves itself to my beddings, reminding me that these counts of cottons do not hold itself up to the kind gentleness that I feel when my beloved hold me against himself. This time, it manifests itself whenever I make a cup of tea instead of two. This time, it disappears whenever I see my beloved's name on my cellphone's screen. This time, there is no elaborate poetries that come from desperation and loneliness that I simultaneously feel everyday during this isolation period.
Had this isolation been done a couple years back, I would have made more poetries than I could have counted. Back then, loneliness and my desperation for romance were what driven me to compose many of my writing. The act of drafting a piece of writing itself was how I found myself, little by little, one alphabet at a time. Ironically, by embracing my loneliness and my desperation for romance, I understood more about myself, even though it was only by a pixel more. Perhaps, it was why I constantly seek that particular feeling, the middle ground between feeling lonely and wanting to be romanced. Nothing compares with how unbelievably great it is to hurt yourself by having this unrealistic expectation of being romanced while at the same time it amplifies your loneliness. But it was a never-ending circle of hell—it was borrowing my happiness and mental stability in order to feel good after feeling sad. It grew into a nameless monster that chewed on me, constantly and loudly reminding me that I was, in fact, made out of loneliness and desperation.
They are gone now, of course. Only aloneness remains, this long-lost relic from my childhood past that exists as a fact, not a state of mind. Its presence has been a constant in my life, it was once a defining thing for me, the girl who takes aloneness well. Through various degrees of solo trips, I gradually accepted that aloneness is simply an inevitable fact that any being goes through. After acknowledging and accepting its existence in my life, my aloneness is only amplified whenever nostalgia knocked on my door, asking me to lend a space for it to showcase what has been encapsulated inside it, or in cases like this, when I am incapable of being physically reminded that I have my beloved with me.
This period of my life is new; what with working from home, learning how to accomplish new tasks, and being away from my beloved. Yet, I am relieved for having experienced amplified loneliness and desperation for romance, however damaging they were, they taught me that I am well capable of taking care of my aloneness without having to self-exploit or ignore it completely.