bus time

Now Playing: Falling by Florence + The Machine (I've danced myself up, drunk myself down, found people to love, left people to drown. I'm not scared to jump, I'm not scared to fall, if there was nowhere to land I wouldn't be scared at all) 

I'd forgotten how much time I need alone. When there's no-one to talk to, then you don't want to be with anyone from time to time. Chatting banally to people about the weather when I all I want is to pour my heart out and have one person, just one person understand...it's a poor substitute for what I need. If I'm not talking I'm thinking, and to think I have to be alone.

I've never really had great opportunities to be alone. When I go to Asia to visit family the sense of relief that comes when I get back home is the fact that I finally have more moments to myself. When I was little one of my bedroom walls was just one really big window, and I would press my face to the mesh and watch the cars fly by in the middle of the night, just thinking and breathing in the cold night air. I would sit up on my bed and wrap my quilt around me like a safety blanket, until eventually I'd collapse with exhaustion and keel over in all sorts of awkward positions. I used to sit in the bath and just think, watching my skin flush crab red and then icy pale as the boiling water cooled.

Now I have my alone time - bus time. I probably look very scary on the bus, because I know I stare blankly at things and my dark eyes often look like they're burning when I'm thinking intently. It's weird being surrounded by so many people, and yet to have so much time alone. It's strangely soothing, to watch the suburbs float by, comforting in its pedestrian monotony, and just think, just mull things over.

What do I think about? Memories...memories are for reliving. I'm afraid I haven't got very good muscle memory but words, thoughts, emotions, sensations...I remember them all. I think about people, places, how things are, how things will be. Everything I want to say to someone, everything I don't understand that I want somebody to help me to understand...when there is no-one to talk to, I tell it to myself.

It surprises people that I am such a solitary person. Much of my solitude is imposed, forced upon me - but no matter how lonely I get I've always had to push people away and get some breathing space. I don't understand why people are so shocked when I get annoyed when people get into my bubble. I let people into my bubble, but I like to think of that as a conscious decision instead of some right people think they have. I'm actually very much of a recluse, very quiet - if you only see me as someone loud and bubbly then you don't know me very well at all - if I've sat next to you, totally avoided eye contact and not said a word, then you see me for who I am - I've let my guard down and I'm feeling very, very vulnerable. Not many people have seen me like that.

I like my own company, but I don't like being alone. I feel so alone right now, and it absolutely kills me. Why do we pretend not to care, why do we make everyone else go through this alone? I'm growing up, changing colour, and nobody cares. That's what it feels like.

I am torn between loving attention and being afraid of it. In this day and age its not socially acceptable to admit that you are attention-seeking, but I am - and I'm not altogether ashamed of that, even if everyone else is. But in other ways I am scared of attention, because it has such a profound effect on me - I'm not used to attention that when I get it I'm not sure how to say no, to not have too much of a good thing. I never really know how to react, and attention is all about reaction - cause and effect and consequence. I love it, but I'm starved of it, and as much as a man locked in a cave dreams of the sun, he'll cower when he first sees daylight.

I like my own company. Loneliness...it's an unfair consequence of solitude, but I can't live without my alone time, my bus time. I am the only person I trust to not judge me, to not let me down. It's not hypocritical to like my own company and sometimes die of loneliness. If I can't find someone to keep me company, to make me feel less alone, to look me in the eye and say 'I understand' - then I'll do it on my own.