Loneliness on the Brink (But Still Not) of Solitude

I stared at the door, apprehensive. Pop music, lined with crackles from a volume knob cranked too loud, pulsed from the wooden barrier. I preferred instrumentals, especially ones filled with violins.

Oh, that boy…?

My hand moved without my permission and the doorbell rang. There was no immediate swinging of the door, no smile to usher me in. Thoughts of rejection dripped into my mind and I cleansed that immediately with a frown that splintered my icy skin. The music was loud. It must have been lost in that snare drum roll.

A young couple stumble onto the porch and their laughter dies away as they see me. It is out of courtesy, but my heart hangs low. I know I am not weirdly dressed, for I made sure to keep my color pallet blue and black, and I only wear a heavy coat for the night temperature. I try to smile. The two glance at each other. Perhaps the corners of my mouth extended instead of curling up.

No, he’s not rude nor impolite; quite the opposite really… but…

The lady digs through her purse for something. As one hand keeps the bag open, I see that her nails are pink and long. I struggle to keep the disapproval off my face, instead focusing on her features. They are free of makeup. Good.

A jingle brings back my attention and I see that she has pulled out a lanyard, illuminated by the porch light. Little sleigh bells clink together and a key juts out. She mutters an apology and steps forwards. I move aside and watch her click the door open. They are not related to me and my family, as I would have seen them before if they were, but she has the key. I do not.

Really out of place, right? Wonder why he still comes.

A wave of heat and noise roll over me as I walk in behind them and my fist, still in my coat pocket, clenches around the paper. It contains elegant cursive script, hand-written with care. My palm feels sweaty and I convince myself it’s from the cramped room. I recount the first sentence of the letter. “We extend our invitation to you in hopes that you will join us in celebrating the Christmas spirit.” It is polite and effective. It is simple yet thought out. It is clean and robotic. It is the writing of a stranger to a stranger. Is that who I am?

A woman, middle-aged but with the exuberant demeanor of a teenager, strolls over. Her attitude is too bright, even for this living room turned dance floor. She grins at me, patting my cheek and saying how I’ve grown.

That is a lie. I have not gotten any taller since summer break, but I thank her anyways. Either her mouth, slathered with too much lipstick, speaks with the same level of artificiality as its cover, or she does not remember how I was before. I let her take my hand and lead me through the crowd while strangers wave at her. She responds with great vigor, but I stare at the wooden floor, wondering what is buried underneath; what would it be like to melt and seep through those cracks into the earth, to bury myself in solitude and darkness. Suffocating was a small price to pay for silence. Not only was there too much music, whoever chose the playlist was either deaf or had just chosen the first songs they saw on YouTube’s recommended.

I don’t know why we still try. He clearly doesn’t care.

The woman –my aunt, I realize a little late with guilt—stops. She talks to two young men a bit older than me, but having infinitely times more fun, if their flushed cheeks and lopsided grins are anything to go by. She gestures to me and says my name. I put on a smile and brush some hair aside in a rare act of self-consciousness. I hate that part of me, the longing to be accepted, because that is what pulls me here. The men are confused for a bit, having never seen me at any recent gatherings, but my name is only one syllable and generic. They remember it easily enough and file it away where it will surely be confused with the dozens of others with the same name.

My aunt must have realized something, because she walks to a table. It is covered with writing supplies and subsequently marker strokes. She slides a rectangle and a pen towards me with an expectant curve of the brow. Guests need to know your name, she explains, and taps the name sticker with the end of the pen.

I take it and obey, but my smile has fallen. I press the five blocky letters onto the paper, ignoring the slight slant, and stick it onto my chest. My layers of clothing feel useless as what the identification means shoots straight to my heart; no one else in the party has a name tag.

He stands out.

She leaves me and I am alone, like I always have been. Family acquaintances and distant relatives litter the floor, but I walk to a corner, next to the stairs, determined on staying there for the rest of the party. They have never been a part of my life, because I have never been a part of theirs. The out-of-place grandfather clock marks each passing second, and although the soft clucks are drowned out by the noise, a bridge of memories let the sound leap over the partygoers and safely tick in my mind. Five minutes have passed since I came here, and impatience is already making my teeth grit and fingers curl.

He’s not quite right, eh?

There was a window, half as tall as me and placed high enough to account for that, and the glowing moon amidst the landscape of blue and black would have been more beautiful if not for the overload of lights in this room. A pickup truck rolls down the empty street of bars and the small trinket shops that never seemed to be there for any reason except to complete the picture. I couldn’t make out the passengers of the vehicle, but I liked to think that it was one man on a late night drive and I wished that I could take his place. Hands on the driving wheel, at rest down the linear street, the only other forms of life being the rustling pine trees and ambitious caches of moss. The radio turned off and the speed slow to minimize the grumbling engine, with shoddy (and most importantly, empty,) restaurants all around. Crude and old-fashioned, but desirable.

Always left behind, that one.

I let my world become the one outside.

That’s where I am.

It’s where I am.