My family got into an accident when I was eight years old [a] and one of the most vivid things I can remember was my first night in the hospital: I was alone, and the AC was turned all the way up [b]. I remember shaking, and shouting, begging, crying for anyone to turn it off please - but I must not have been really - because no one came in to check on me in that dark, cold room. Eventually my tears dried, and I fell asleep.
To this day I sleep with a night-light and a blanket so heavy, it was almost suffocating because I didn't want it to be dark or cold.
It reminds of the loneliest night of my life - each family member was placed in a different room [c], and no one was around. That's probably when I got my crippling fear of being alone and of loneliness.
I became insufferable, doing, saying, being anything to avoid the trap of ending up alone. What's worse is that growing up in my romantic-obsessed culture - I ended up equating my happiness with not being alone and not being alone was equal to being in a romantic relationship.
Being single meant I was unhappy.
I ruined many potential friendships because I was more interested in being their "girlfriend" than being their friend, all because of my crippling fear of loneliness.
The thing I had to realize was I had to learn to be comfortable being with myself. I had to learn to love the person I'd find in the cold and in the darkness.
I had to learn to love who I am.
I don't believe that you have to learn to love yourself before you can truly love anyone, but I do believe that one can never be truly happy - content - if they didn't know how to love themselves.
I had to find beauty in the dark.
I had to find beauty in me. Beauty that I could see in me no matter what, whether I'm alone or surrounded by people. Because in the end, the opinion that really makes the difference sometimes, is your own.
And you know what? I am [d] beautiful.
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Footnotes:
a. A long story for another time.
b. Something to do with keeping my body as cool as possible so that scars that was already forming from my fresh wounds wouldn't be too ugly. I don't think it really helped all that much.
c. I was told that it was because they wanted us to not be traumatized at the sight of each other's wounds. I'm sure that didn't help at all when we were already traumatized to begin with.
d. [Insert expletive here].