Loneliness

Loneliness is that one feeling that I have experienced my whole life. Sometimes because I was alone but most of the times when I was with a crowd of people.

I remember feeling lonely on my ninth birthday. I can still recall hearing at least 17 people in the room singing happy birthday to me and all I could feel was sad because I felt lonely. This feeling followed me throughout my teenage years. I waited for University to begin so that I could escape from that gloomy little city of Muzaffarabad and live in the happiest place of Pakistan, Islamabad. But the feeling didn’t go away even when I started university in Islamabad. Despite having the best English language teachers in the country who commended me for my performance in class and living with three wonderful roommates who made me laugh so much that my tummy would hurt, I felt lonely.

The only time that I don’t feel lonely is when I am reading a book. Because by reading a book I can be someone else for at least three hours every day. Those books taught me if I wait patiently and fight bravely, I will get my happy ending. I thought coming to U.S would be the beginning of my happy ending. It’ll be a chance for me to be the protagonist of one of best stories that I will be the writer of. But all I feel is lonely. I guess it is true that you can’t expect to feel whole by changing your home because wherever you go you take yourself with you. The loneliness lies within you not around you.