Lonesome

The night draws late. The moon has risen high in the sky, a bright, shimmering beacon in a deep, black abyss above the heart of the city. I’ve always admired the way that the moon’s serene glow cascades over the nearby stars, making them shine even brighter than they were shining before. Sometimes, I sit out on the balcony of my apartment, maybe sipping from a glass of red wine or a mug of warm coffee, and I count them. It can take minutes, or even hours to do so; I don’t really make a point to keep track of the time. And no matter what, I can never get a final count of all the stars in the sky. They are infinite. Inevitable. Tiny beacons of hope that never disappear...at least, until the sun comes up and the night gives way to a new day.

Something that’s always bothered me is the way that the natural glow of the moon and stars is disturbed by the fluorescent lights of the city. Even now, even late, the streets of New York City are bustling with activity. Window shoppers with too much money and not enough to do with it. Traveling businessmen, traipsing from the local bars back to their hotels with any assortment of young women in tow. Families, out for their evening walks with their dogs; children shrieking with laughter or anger as they sprint freely down the sidewalks. 

There are so many people living here in New York City. And speaking as someone who has been all over the country, there’s truly something to be said of the Big Apple. The city never sleeps. Never. There’s always something significant happening on its streets, weathered from years and years of relentless traffic, and for whatever reason, I always happen to witness the events themselves. Two Mondays ago, it was a robbery at Kay Jeweler’s. Last weekend, a bicyclist nearly caused a crash at one of the intersections on Madison Avenue. And just yesterday, the police caught three men in a drug bust right down my street. I didn’t feel the least bit sorry for them, truth be told. They were stupid to even assume they wouldn’t get caught. The police department here in New York City is always on top of that kind of thing.

As I watch from my balcony, looking out over the lights of the city and listening to the hustle and bustle of its residents, a heavy feeling settles over me. I begin to feel deeply lonely. For the first time in a very long while.

I scoff to myself, realizing how ridiculous the notion is. I’m not a lonely person. I have my friends. I have my coworkers. I have my family, just a few miles west of my apartment complex. I see them all the time. 

But as the thought spins inside my mind, I begin to doubt it. I don’t actually see my family that often. They have their own lives, busy and chaotic as mine is. My younger brother is in high school; he’s the star player on the varsity basketball team. My older sister and her best friend have just recently started working at some law firm upstate, which takes up the majority of their free time. My mother is employed at some rough-and-tumble grocery store not far away, which is a bit unsettling to me. And my father...he’s so caught up in his work that he’s rarely home at all. I’m not even sure what he does for a living, if I’m being honest. The man hasn’t reached out to his own son in months. I try not to be bothered by it, but it’s hard.

Many of my high school and college friends have families of their own now. They work long hours at their respective jobs, dealing with their own curveballs that life throws at them and hustling every day to put food on their tables. I don’t envy them, though, for having spouses and children of their own; sometimes I question how well I am actually taking care of myself. I couldn’t imagine taking care of another human being, let alone my own child. I’ve always been told that as I get older, my mind will change about those sorts of things. ‘Don’t be set in your ways,’ people tell me. ‘You’ve got your whole life to make those decisions. Don’t jump the gun now.’

I always ignore them. 

As for my coworkers….well, I should think this is an obvious one. It’s not that we don’t converse at work, because we do. Small talk, mostly. And if one of us is having a particularly off day, we band together to make the black sheep feel at home. It’s what we’ve always done to make one another feel more at home.

But lately, I’ve been feeling like the black sheep that masks his emotions in a shimmering white coat. So I smile, converse, and laugh with my coworkers like I don’t have a single care in the world. Inside, though, my soul is crumbling. I am the Grand Canyon, but instead of its walls standing stout and strong, as it has for any number of years, the rock and granite are slowly being chipped away, breaking off and falling into the chasm below.

It’s actually rather ironic when I think about it long enough. There are over eight million people in this huge city, and yet, here I sit. On my balcony. Alone. My little apartment is peaceful and quiet, to be sure, but sometimes it gets incredibly lonely. And going downstairs for the occasional breakfast with Mr. Knox in Apartment 314 is nice, but it still doesn’t fill that deep cavern of loneliness that has consumed me on this night, many nights before, and many nights to come. 

And as I sit, sipping slowly on the herbal tea my mother sent me for Christmas last year, a single solemn thought ponders in my mind: will this feeling ever go away?