Ten Years Later

I am not a very manly man, I agree. I have been called too nice and too soft by many people, my mother included. She admits to babying me and allowing me to do the things I wanted to do for her such as clean the house, cook and take care of my younger siblings. My father says she raised them a little girl.

I don’t take offense when people think that I am still a teenager, sometimes it was a real advantage to be seen as a younger person, especially when I walk into the manga store on my way home from work and even more when I tell people I still live with my parents.

I am actually thirty years old you see and I am working at one of the biggest software firms in the country, though granted I am just a records keeper, but I earn enough to afford a home of my own, yet I am still living with my aged parents.

They didn’t have any disabilities you know. It was just that my company is closer to home and I am more comfortable at home. Oh, who am I kidding? I have monophobia. That is the fear of living alone.

I have tried to deny the existence of this phobia and wished to all my heart for it to be a fairytale but I… confirmed it last year when I moved out successfully and was unable to spend even one night in my new apartment. I ran home bawling my eyes out because of the darkness and the windows and the boogeyman I could see only when I was alone.

If I tried to brave this fear myself and stubbornly chant with a gusto that boogeymen were not real and there was nothing under the bed, I would find my hallucination getting so real that I would even be hurt by phantoms spirits— which were actually the wall I would bump into or the desk I would kick.

I can’t live alone, but this year at the top of my new year’s resolutions list, I Marho Darling, will overcome my phobia.

I wrote four other resolutions this year two thousand and one. This time I have a plan that was sure to succeed. The plan was simple. I would rent a house that was right in the middle of a public road and in a busy building. I was happy for all of two minutes setting up my living space with the help of a younger sibling. When it was nighttime, however, I was scared to let her go. She ended up staying with me for a month while I summoned the courage to stay alone. I didn’t succeed, suffice it to say, hence why I am going to write it again here on my new year’s resolution.

This time I am going to definitely beat this phobia once and for all

Darkness was the problem I decided. In two thousand and one after my epic failure, I moved to another house and personally built-in high and sharp lights. It was hell. My eyes couldn’t get used to it, I couldn’t sleep at all, I was irritated at work and also white mists were flying around looking like little people. What the hell. I ran out of the house within forty-eight hours. Ashamed to face my parents, I started sleeping in cybercafés that opened all through the night. It always had someone so I wasn’t alone, but I couldn’t keep it up for a whole year. I went back home.

So, now two thousand and three sees me again with a pen. I stared at the piece of paper and wrote: Lord God, this year help me overcome my Phobia.

This time the lord God sent me a girlfriend. She wanted me to move out four months into dating. “I can’t live alone,” I say.

“what do you mean?” she asks.

“I have Monophobia”

She laughs, “is that even real?”

“it is!” I go further to explain how it works in one breath.

“Okay, cool down, “she smiles, “then I will just move in with you, is that okay?”

“Yes!”

God really works. Everything was going great and I was having a blast with my girlfriend. I am finally living on my own. Well, not on my own but at least I am not living with my parents.

After a month of dating, Sara and I hit a wall. She wanted me to be more explorative in bed and honestly, I knew I wasn’t a passionate man. When I caught her cheating on me I wasn’t even surprised. Still, I said, “stay with me, you can keep seeing the other guy. “

“No,” she said as she packed. “If it is a roommate you want then get one. I won’t stay with someone as cold as you!”

Am I cold?

The next three years after that I gave up on moving out of my parents’ home. My mom was very supportive but I got the feeling she was exceedingly worried. So I wrote again on New Year’s Day: I know nothing is going to come of this but I am going to try and overcome my phobia.

I started therapy again. Actually, I didn’t believe in therapy. My father was a bigot, he instilled in me that all therapists were quacks and I have believed him, but since I didn’t really expect anything to happen, I took the therapy class. I saw I wasn’t the only weird one and we were asked to take each day as it comes

I started spending half a time alone in the house when my parents were not around and eating alone away from my colleagues at work. I realized that while growing up, and even now, I had a way of gluing myself to people and they also glued to me, either because of my waffles or my very agile fingers for massaging.

Eventually, I could stay three hours alone in an empty house without seeing shadows and ghosts, but that’s about as good as it gets.

I gave up again until I had to send my mom into the nursing home, so I wrote on the note pad I used for resolution: Mom is going away soon. I don’t have anyone else around me. If I can’t overcome this before then, I might just die. This was 2019. Dad had died earlier.

2020, I would like to say that I overcame my phobia but somehow I am still here. I guess next year I would write again. Anyway, I have a roommate now and maybe they could be more? I am extremely attracted to them.

The end.