I don’t remember crying. I don’t think I even second guessed what I was about to do. I remember waiting until it was time to board, saying goodbye to my family, and just walking to the gate. I didn’t look back. I didn’t hesitate. I just did it because I knew that was the next thing that was happening.
That was in 2013, and I was about to hop on a flight to Barcelona for a semester of studying abroad. It was my first international flight, and I was completely on my own. I was brave then. So brave. I don’t know what happened. Because I’m not brave now.
As soon as I read the text message about flying directly to Honolulu, I lost it. I was seated next to a guy in an all-black sweat suit covered in tattoos and gold chains and it took everything in me to not start sobbing right next to him. I bit my lip and held back the tears. I didn’t want to go back to Honolulu. I am absolutely terrified of Honolulu.
When my dad called I told him I didn’t want to. I wasn’t ready. I didn’t want to fly directly to Honolulu. I wanted to go home. San Francisco home. I wanted to be with my dad and my mom and anyone. Because in Honolulu I have no one. I would be going home to no one. And that was the scary part.
That’s what’s been keeping me up at night. Rolling around and around and around until the bedsheets are all tangled up. Waking up at 10 PM then 11:30 PM then 2 AM and again at 4 AM until finally I let myself go to the bathroom at 5:30 AM. Knowing that there is nobody else here. Not next to me, not in the other room. I’m here, all alone.
I have an irrational fear that I’ll get kidnapped in the middle of the night and no one will know. It won’t be until the next morning when I don’t show up to work and they call my emergency contact- which would do no good because Cassie is all the way in California. And by that point how long will I have been missing? Where would my body be? What if I’m sold into a sex trafficking ring?
And I know it’s completely absurd, because I live in a safe neighborhood. I have apartment neighbors, and the complex is so quiet that anyone would hear me scream if I yelled loud enough for help.
But I have a deeply rooted fear of being alone and nobody immediately caring about my well-being.
Of course, my family cares and my friends care. But they’re on a completely different time zone. People from work probably care, but I don’t think they realize how much this has been affecting me. Some friends on the island might care, but I feel like all those ties have been strained. Mikey might care, but he’s decided to stop talking to me again.
Right now, all I can hear is the screaming silence of having no one around. No one to sit on the couch with and watch movies. No one in the kitchen with me to cook dinner. No one at all. Just me.
The honeymoon phase of living on my own has worn off. And while I still love being able to make a mess without bothering other people or getting to walk around in my underwear and no one seeing, I think I could trade that in for having someone familiar close by.