I hate solitude but I am afraid of intimacy. The substance of my life is a private conversation with myself and to turn it into a dialogue would be equivalent to self-destruction. The company I need is the company which a pub or café will provide. I have never wanted a communion of souls. It's already hard enough to tell the truth to oneself.

Iris Murdoch, from Under the Net

sometime in spring 2023

I reconnected with my first love recently, 7 years after the end of our relationship and 4 years after the last time I saw him. In between those timelines and lifetimes, I often thought of him as the only one I’d ever love like that. The only soul tie I had ever created. I have loved and been loved since him in those timelines and lifetimes and I believed I had proven myself wrong a few times but the end never felt the way it did when he left. He was the first person to show my young jaded heart that love was real, even when it ended. I remember the rant I gave my mother at the dinner table with tear filled eyes. I was 16 experiencing my first heartbreak and no feeling I had ever experienced had ever felt that real. I spoke highly of him still, through my shattered heart and swollen eyes, tears still racing down my cheeks and eyes that have gotten no sleep. I spoke of gratitude; how grateful I was to love like that, to be loved like that. To feel so deeply and connect to someone in such a way at such a young age.

“The pain was worth it!” I kept repeating, sobbing. “I would go back and only love him harder despite knowing the inevitable end! I would only love him harder and hold him tighter!”

My mother looked over at her 16 year old daughter, crying with gratitude over a broken heart and replied “you are so beautiful.” She herself experienced heartbreak, the end of a marriage just the year before mine and was still in the painful grief process. She was the first of the family to experience heartbreak, a lost love, and I was second. The eldest daughter out of three kids, the middle child and yet I have fallen in and out of love more times than anyone else in my family. They watch my tireless attempts at finding that feeling again like I am a creature at a zoo, dumbfounded at my fearlessness of getting my heart broken again.

He sat across from me for the first time in 4 years and I started to mentally count and compare all the differences I’d notice from the man in front of me to the boy that used to lie in my arms and live in my heart. He has a beard now and I notice chest hair peeking out from the top of his t-shirt. His hair is much shorter and seems darker, still messy but nothing like the shoulder length light blond hair I used to intertwine my fingers in. His smile was the same, his mannerisms too; like the way he uses his hands to talk when he's being lighthearted and playful. He spoke more confidently now, aware and comfortable in his skin. His body resembles more of a man than a lanky young boy which caught me off guard a bit. His eyes haven't changed either and the feeling of his stare has the same effect after all this time.

He told me about his life, his journey through grief and suffering. How he's been committed to healing everything that he avoided in his youth. He can finally cry now, the pressure he used to feel in his face is no longer there. He wears a big tiger's eye crystal around his neck and smiles wider now. His laugh is more full body like he's accepted joy into his life like never before. I had to hold back tears when I noticed all of the similarities and differences I found.

I felt the disconnect from the present, and a simultaneous hyper awareness of all the lives I lived in his absence. This feeling rushed through my veins, like the caffeine from a double shot of espresso or the head rush that follows a sober cigarette. He says “You look the same, but your energy is more you; calmer.” I told him about my life the past 4 years and although I experienced traveling and life in many ways; the common pattern is my habit of getting in and out of relationships. My heart has broken about 5 times since the end of our relationship, in the past 7 years. The men I’ve dated become no more than a stranger to me after a year. How devoted I am to loving even though I was rarely loved back in the same capacity is confusing to him.

“Do you believe you deserve love?” He asked me.

“Are you afraid of being alone?”

I lingered on that thought. Embarrassed. When was the last time I was single? Alone with nowhere to put my love other than myself and my world? I had just moved into my first apartment with my current boyfriend. He's gentle, treats me well and loves me so much. The healthiest relationship I’ve ever experienced in my adulthood. But I can’t help but think we've only been dating for 6 months and not even a month before I met him I was in Greece with a completely different lover. I didn’t choose the city we moved to, he did and I was okay with it. I didn’t plan anything about Greece, he did but I was okay with it. These men that court me plan futures with me in their heads and I fear I just simply play the part... Do I allow myself any say in these futures? Or am I just okay with it? Is the concept of falling and staying in love more important to me than my own journey to find myself? Healing myself? The spiritual path I have always been drawn to but always ignored because the people I allowed myself to love never took that part of me seriously, never mind joining me on the same path.

"I'm scared of ending up alone"

- Ellie Williams, The Last of Us

Things To Remember When You Are Scared Of Being Alone

We all are scared of one thing or other. It is quite common to be scared of being alone. There could be many reasons for it. Despite the reasons, remember that you are not alone in this. Always open up to someone about your feelings. If feelings are bottled up for a long, they can damage your mental well-being. If you are scared of being alone, then you should reach out for professional help. You can get in touch with the team at FeelHeard for receiving professional help.

Radahn designs + Headcanons

Lands between's biggest horse girl

how do you go on when nothing makes you happy :(

this whole show is just a scheme made up by Big Tennant to sell more David Tennant

chosen by the goddess

STOP

It's all such a charade, she thought, this pretending to be in love just to avoid being alone. I want to love him, but you can't force yourself to fall in love with someone, let alone marry them, just because they want you to.

Anna Biller, from Bluebeard's Castle

i see... i see...

while we're on the subject of "morty-prime teamup" what if there was another two crows situation

How to cope if you are scared of being alone?

Being alone can be really scary, especially if you don't know anyone or if you don't know what to do. But it's never a bad idea to be scared of being alone. If you're feeling that way, just remember that there are lots of things that can make us feel better, like talking to your close, engaging with people. 

Another thing I haven't seen anyone point out yet that just occurred to me.

This little story Lake tells sort of parallels Jesse. His friends are a bad influence on him, and likely don't respect his boundaries. Part of his character arc is realizing he needs to let them go.

Lake's story, though vague, does make sense. They never say they were close with Tulip. Never say the two of them had a good relationship as they get older or that separating hurt Tulip.

But Jesse still says it's unbelievable to stop being friends with someone. To need space from them.

Because he isn't at a point where he can do that. Where he can admit that he needs space from his friends.

And this, ultimately, is what draws Jesse to be friends with Lake. They don't try to make him anyone else he isn't.