Loneliness does kill.

For the first time in three months, under grey skies and meshed between the end-of-summer breeze, I found myself walking on campus.  With my twelve-year-old torn up mechanical pencil in my backpack, my iPhone playing ballads in my pocket, and my earphones in my ears, I felt as if time was to stop at that very moment, I would be okay with it.  After all, I do love my campus: from the rusty trees scattered throughout campus to the broken cracks on the sidewalks, from the roof of the highest building to the dirtiest basement of the oldest building on campus, from the shy wobbly ducks to the 'people-friendly' squirrels - I really do love my campus.  All it took was four years.

But as I was walking, I couldn't help but feel a bit sad - lonely, melancholy.  It was a very strange feeling to me, one I haven't felt before.  It was like...I knew the campus yet at the same time, I felt like a stranger to the campus.  All of the sudden, the campus seemed way larger than it was for me the last four years; the trees seemed taller and more in numbers, the road seemed wider, and the benches seemed longer.  It seemed so strange that I just stopped.  I just stopped walking.  I looked to my right, then to my left, then behind me.

Empty.

This road that I took was empty.  No one was biking or walking by.  It was just the trees, the benches, the cracked road, the buildings, the grey sky, the mellow breeze, and me.  And at that very moment, when I realized that there was just me and the trees and the benches and the cracked road and the buildings and the grey sky and the mellow breeze, I realized how lonely I was, how lonely I am.

Sure, you can say that I was lonely because I was walking by myself but if you have never experienced loneliness, I'm not just talking about physical loneliness, it would be hard for you to understand the pain that accompanies that internal loneliness.  It was as if something inside of me had died and with it, my desire to live.  It was as if I was going to live forever and after living for so long, I will have nothing to look forward to.  It was as if my heart was no longer beating and all that's left is an empty vessel.  This was the loneliness that I felt at that very moment.  This is the loneliness that I'm talking about; the loneliness that will mentally torment me and eventually kill me.

And that's what I'm afraid of.  I know that I'm not courageous enough nor strong enough to fight that loneliness.  So, when that loneliness comes creeping up on me, I know really well that I will give in to it.  And that's what I'm afraid of; I'm afraid because I know that I am capable of just giving in.