These days, I often find myself yearning for privacy. I live away from home in a dormitory inside the university where I study in a quite small room that I share with three others. My teacher in my PE class today told us of her experience of passing by a woman who was talking to thin air, raging about things that she seemed to have failed to do—raging at life.
As to how she put it, my teacher felt pity for that person, even feared that this certain other was starting to have a nervous breakdown. But then I thought. It’s not that bad. I don’t know if the same can be said for others—or for that woman—but talking to myself—especially out loud—seems to have some cathartic effect on me. And I find myself longing for this, because obviously with three roommates, I only have so much privacy. I’d start off when maybe I’m depressed about something, failed to do something. I’d chastise myself for maybe not having done better, and would go on and on in this general direction for minutes. What follows then is my favorite part. I then would start consoling myself, tell myself that things would get better. That I have just to wait for it, and more importantly, work for it. I often end up feeling better, as if I had control over my life again, as if my path though still unclear has become definite.
Although I hate many of the things that I do when I’m alone—bumming myself out, spending the time away idle and being unproductive, something that in itself stresses me out—I like some others when I find myself without company—rare as I am that these days.
I think I as a person am the type who becomes restless when unable to let out her thoughts, feelings, frustrations. I sing to myself, write fluff. The books love me when I’m alone. I’ve always fared better in studying reading out the words—and it’s something that I of course have to keep in moderation given my current living arrangement. At the start of the year, as I was used to noise in my dorm room last year—one which I also shared with three other people (who were more fun and at times potential de-stressors), I played music, plugged in my headphones, and read out loud—but not too loudly. Later on my roommates complained about my being too much of a disturbance. I felt stressed about how my roommates seemed to think of me as nothing but exactly that—someone who shared the same room with them. Although we do talk sometimes, I find myself counting how many of those times actually came about with necessity, or just because we wanted to—as a tentative but eager offer for friendship.
You might be wondering as you read this, where are her friends? Surely no one could be a greater loser than a person who has no other support to speak of, no willing friends’ shoulders to lean and cry on, but herself alone to try to get herself out of the dump when the dark starts and have set in. Sure I have friends. I go out with them regularly, meet many of them everyday in classes—yes, my college friends—but still I guess while calling myself ‘reserved’ seems quite off the mark, I still am quite a private person. I long for closeness, I long for true moments spent out of the mutual want of being together and then deriving happiness from the experience, but maybe sometimes, as you’re supposed to know yourself better than anyone, it helps to go back to reflecting alone—on your own. And then you set out, connect with friends, then later replay the experience in your mind. What did you truly feel? Were you—are you—happy?
But then again, I might as well just haven’t found the right person to open more of myself out to.
