January 30th, 2025,
Hello, Friend,
Please, take the time to read this. Listen to me for one moment. A moment of your time, please. Despite your busy schedule, I promise this will be worthwhile if you disregard the longing and the pathetic mess I worry I convey, even through my writing.

Are you still there?

Now that we can finally speak, I have much to share, pent-up feelings I could never express. It is ridiculous, I think, to feel my nerves tense with each word I write to you, as if, even at this moment, you cannot let me go. The grip of you feeds into every conscious thought, every interaction, every significant moment in my life—I am bound to you by some blood oath I never remembered taking. But we humans all deal with you—one way or another—and it makes me wonder how busy you must be.

Do you move around with us? I make the leap to a new city, eager and ready to explore a world beyond the one I have known without you. But then, you are there. Waiting. First, at the airport. One bag—small and light, but enough to remind me you exist. The second in the car as the towering skyscrapers pass me by. A little package neatly wrapped with a pink bow. That one I cherish most—it reminds me I am human and how I should carry this small amount of you wherever I go. I learned to appreciate it, and I thank you. Until I reach my new apartment, and the bags are no longer covered to shield me from the truth, but now stacked high so I can never forget it. Forget you.

This is only the beginning. The cycle repeats. The days pass and the days turn into weeks and then into months, I slowly throw away the bags, the weight of you slipping off my shoulders each time I do. Such a freeing feeling. But then the moment someone walks out of my life or the moment I question why I am in this new place, another one of your packages shows up at my doorstep. It never mattered where I was in the city. If I was out in a nightclub or a coworker’s house, your presence lingered.

A. Constant. Relentless. Reminder. Of. You!

I can never shed you, can I? I can never convince you to let me free from your grip. These packages constantly remind me how you can whisk me away from my hard-won happiness and security. I will do anything to keep you away—pay, beg, plead—as long as possible. I cannot handle your full presence, the packages are more than enough to remind me a piece of you stays. But if I can only handle these fragments of you, how do you feel? Do you, too, feel your own presence?

I know you do. The ache in your gut whenever you say goodbye to someone you love, the way your heart stops when someone mentions something you did that upset them—I feel it all the time. So, what do we both want? Unity? Acceptance? I fear neither of those are correct, and we shield each other from the truth, if only to make ourselves feel as though we have some purpose in this isolated and repetitive world.

So, tell me, Loneliness, why do we care? Why do you make me care? Writing, watching films, reading—all of those can be done alone. Eating, running, sleeping never require another being to make me feel accomplished. Yet in my bed, late at night, when everyone is gone, and I am left with nothing but the thoughts in my head, that is when you invade my mind the most. I think you feel me, too, since you need to dig into every conscious thought I have. It feels good to know we are not alone in that way. No matter what, you, Loneliness, will always find me, and I will have no choice but to accept you.

And that is okay. Because I know what you feel, so I will embrace you with open arms, because we make each other feel less, well, lonely. But accepting you does not mean surrendering to you. I will walk beside you, acknowledge you, even learn from you—but that is all. And maybe you can learn a thing or two from how I choose to live despite you.

Until I feel you again,
Tatiana Coleman
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