I open my email first thing in the morning when I arrive to work. 

Today from my mother I read:

“Hi bebe,” followed by confirmation that yes, I could defer the loan I was supposed to begin paying her back; that her students’ work looks good; that her broken pinky is healing, and that graduation is soon. 
My throat aggressively constricts over the last detail. 

I graduated from the Evergreen State College one year ago. It was like a wedding, everyone joked. We were prom king and queen. Surrounded by those I loved and in love myself, it was the best day of my life.

Now, alone at my white and sticky desk, in my grey and recycled cubicle, I have nothing of that life anymore. 
Not the boyfriend, the adoring professors, or the comfort of living near home. 
Not the notion that I can do anything. 
Not the image of eternal blossoms playing forever in my mind. 

My throat tightens another notch and my eyes well. Briney hot tears leak not as drops but as puddles around my eyes surely dragging my mascara with them.

Loneliness.

I am lonely all the time and in many directions. 
My 12-year-old cousin asked my aunt what kind of machine she would build to save the world, she replied, “one that could cure loneliness.” 
His machine?  A bed that teaches you everything you need to learn in high school, cleverly equipped with the capacity to print your diploma, too. 
My aunt thought her response was inappropriate to tell a 12-year-old, but it had just slipped out.

I loved Tom very much. I loved our story and that time in my life, more. It didn’t stay perfect. Following graduation was a hot, noxious summer where I worked too much and we drank too much, and then a misguided move to Denver, Tom’s hometown. But that day—my college graduation—in a white dress that looked delicate enough to be made of paper, was perfect. And reading about its shadow whilst already reeling from loneliness, anxiety and fear was more than I could take.  

If you want to know if this is a story about how you have to love yourself before you can love anyone or anything else, it is. 
If you want to know that life gets better once that illusive self-love is discovered, it doesn’t. 
At least that’s my suspicion. 
I don’t know because I’m only just beginning. 
I am a vessel with too much chatter in her head and life is demanding that I make peace with myself; 
that I learn to talk myself down from the ledge instead of asking others to do it for me; 
that I fortify myself;
that I withstand the moments, (or hours,) where I think I may die;
that I hoard self efficacy. 
That I do these things and be totally alone.

 Unless it all just does me in.