The Idea

I had never experienced true loneliness until the first night I moved to another city, in another state, for university. I was suddenly truly alone. Two thousand kilometres from home. In the dark, I couldn’t hear my dad’s heavy footsteps or my sister slamming doors, only the sound of possums on the roof, or a train horn in the distance.
Days gave no relief. I had the whole day to myself. All twenty four hours to fill. With nobody at the end of it to ask how it was, nobody to share dinner with, to commiserate over my gluggy spaghetti or burnt mince. Dessert of microwaved porridge, the bowl warming my lap.
I met a few people at O-week but these connections led nowhere. And I had a job but it was only weekends in a bar, where no one seemed interested in talking, and so my voice remained silent and unused. The weeks loomed long and large, passing by slowly.
At night, I would stay up late, looking at the lights of the city from my window, wondering what everyone else could possibly be doing.
I had always loved reading; a solitary activity, but I lost this love, and retreated into my own head. I spent a lot of time walking, earphones in, walking to nowhere, doing laps of the block, walking well into the night, returning home in the dark, too exhausted to think about anything except to crawl into bed and listen to the possums on the roof.
It was the loneliest period of my life.