love is a growing up.

I am filled with this vast empty pit of loneliness. It's something I am not used to, having believed all my life that I am independent and having been told just last night that I've never been good tied down. But it's about time I stop lying to myself.

I am alone.

And I have never felt more like it before. I'm so used to having someone's arm to squeeze, or having someone who I can call when someone says something stupid that I can't stop laughing at, or even having someone whose hair I can play with as we drive down the highway.

Yet I think of all these things, and I can't stop thinking me, me, me. What am I missing? What do I need to make me happy? Not, what can I do to make sure that whoever I'm with is just as happy? How can I make that person smile?

Which is exactly why I need to feel alone, I suppose. While I do think it is reasonable to wonder what makes me happy, I don't think it's reasonable to always be thinking what others can do to get me there. I think the questions I need to ask myself are more like, why do I hate myself so much that I can't spend a night alone in my dorm room without feeling the need to beg someone to hang out with me? Why do I get so angry with Rebecca when she ditches me? Shouldn't I be able to be by myself for one, maybe two nights without having a breakdown?

I have a lot of things to figure out. I have a long way to go before I can feel what I see others feeling constantly-- that they belong to someone, and they don't care. Because they'll do whatever it takes to make sure they smile.

More questions flood over me: am I even capable of that emotion? Have I been so spoiled that I may never be happy with anyone? Or is it just what Nika said, that it's not true that no one will put up with me like he did? That I just need some time to figure out why I'm even worth anyone spending any time on me at all?

I just wish I could feel like I was the same girl I was two years ago, when life was perfect and simple. So perfect and simple that I was able to acknowledge it, even at the time.