The Feeling

Sometimes life has a funny way of showing you the path you are supposed to be on. It can come when you least expect it, and sometimes, you may not even realise it has happened. For me, it came at a time when I needed it most.

My home life was in turmoil. There wasn’t a time I was sober, I was smoking weed all day, every day. I wasn't eating properly and was dangerously underweight. The people I had surrounded myself with did not have the best intentions for me, all they wanted was money for their next high or someone to smoke with so they didn’t feel so alone. Looking back, if I am honest, that was why I became friends with them. Feeling like you are alone in the world is the worst feeling a human can feel. Your mind tricks you into thinking you are not the same as everyone else and you don’t belong anywhere.

Valentines’ day 2018, I had just come home from my daily smoke with my friends and I was feeling extra lonely. I had not long become single from someone who was heavily integrated in my friend group and breaking up with him made quite a lot of the people I thought were my friends hate me. They blamed me for how he decided to act after the fact. I had recently downloaded a dating app on my phone which I decided to take a scroll through. After only a couple of swipes, I came across a profile that caught my eye. Something inside me knew I couldn’t swipe this one away. His profile read:

“Nobody can out smoke me.”

So, I decided to challenge him, I thought I smoked a lot at the time as out of everyone I knew, I smoked the most. He replied almost straight away, I guess something told him he should message me too. Only three messages later, he sent a taxi to my address and I was on the way to his.

Now, I do not support or encourage anyone making the decision I made that night. Especially in the climate of today’s society, you do not know who you are meeting on the internet and least of all their intentions with you. I was just extremely lucky that the person I met was honest, pure and everything he told me he was in the little messages we had exchanged.

After arriving at his home, we smoked, talked, laughed and connected. He was everything I needed in my life and more. He showed me what it was like for someone to be genuinely interested in me and what I love. He was a gentleman.

When it came to going to bed, he offered to sleep on the sofa and would give me the bed. I told him he didn’t need too. I felt bad if I was to come to his home and take over his bed for the night. To make me feel comfortable, he built a wall of pillows between us. He wanted me to know he would not make a move on me if I didn’t want it. The attentiveness towards me was something I had never experienced before. That night I did something I had never done before; I made the first move. Every experience I had up to that moment, I had just followed what the person wanted me to do because I never knew how to say no, I never wanted to hurt anyone or make them angry at me.

He made me feel comfortable and confident. So much so that I took the plunge and broke through the wall. Several times before he noticed what I was trying to do.

Long story short, 5 years later, I am still with him. We got sober together, it wasn’t easy but we did it. I eat properly now, maybe a bit too much! I found what I want to do with my life. Write, tell my story, tell other people’s story who don’t have a voice anymore because I went so long feeling like I didn’t have one.

The point I am making is a feeling I had that night changed my entire life. A feeling nobody should have to feel. A feeling that can be so detrimental to someone’s life. A feeling that has ended so many others lives, I am just the lucky one. That feeling of loneliness started my life. Loneliness saved my life.