I Thought Growing Up Would Feel Less Lonely

Last week, I broke down in front of my therapist. I was doing an exercise with her where she told me to put my hands where I felt the most stressed and told me to imagine what I was feeling like this big cartoon character.

What came to mind wasn’t anything playful or funny. It was a big shadow. It's looming, dark, and formless, the kind that fills so much room you forget there was ever any light in the first place. What I was feeling, I called it loneliness.

When I was a kid, I was almost always alone. It was just the way life was. In Grade 2, while most kids ran around with their best friends, I sat on the sidelines watching my brother play soccer.

I guess I had my own secret routine too, I’d run to the park too, wander from the swings to the slide and back again. Sometimes there were other kids , kids I might say hi to, maybe even laugh with for a few minutes, but they were never mine. Not the friends who saved a spot for me or waited for me to catch up. I had no idea what I was losing out on. I didn’t say goodbye when I moved, and no one really said it back. It was kind of how things just were.

When I moved to a new city, things changed. For the first time, I was surrounded by people, not just classmates, but what I thought to myself as, real friends. People I sat with at lunch and talked about crushes. Looking back now, those were probably some of the best years of my life.

Because I didn't have that kind of freedom when I was growing up, I couldn’t just say yes to after-school plans. Sleepovers, mall trips, just existing outside with friends after dark, those were luxuries I watched other kids have. I wasn’t allowed to go. And even if I was, something always held me back: fear, rules, guilt, maybe all three.

Instead, I watched from a distance. I watched the photos get posted. I watched my friends laugh together in pictures I wasn’t in. And I told myself it was fine. That life just went on. But deep down, I did mind. It’s hard not to, when it feels like everyone else is living the version of life I could only observe from the outside.

But then life goes on.

You grow up. You move away again. People scatter, to new cities, new jobs, new lives.

The friends who once felt like constants become people you catch up with once in a while, if at all.

Plans get postponed. Conversations grow shorter. Everyone’s busy, tired, overwhelmed.

And you tell yourself it’s normal.

That this is simply adulthood.

However, the reality is that being an adult can be lonely.

Not just the kind of lonely where you’re physically alone, but the kind that sticks around even when you’re surrounded by people.

I smile at work. I say the right things. But some nights, it feels like there’s no one to call , and worse, no one who would think to call me either.

As a kid, I didn’t have many close friends, so I never knew what it felt like to lose someone. As I got older and discovered real connection, the kind where you think, "This is my person," and create memories that make you feel at home, I came to understand how fleeting everything is. How temporary people can be. I learned that closeness doesn’t guarantee permanence. That someone can know all your secrets, be there for your worst days, and still decide to leave. Sometimes it’s circumstances, it’s inevitable. You can tell yourself it’s not meant to be.

But I think that’s the part that shook me. Because I thought if you cared about someone deeply enough, if you showed up, if you shared real parts of yourself, that it meant something lasting. But I’ve learned that even the strongest bonds can fade. Even when you needed them to stay. That sometimes the person you loved can become the person you hate. And the worst part? How fast it can happen. How someone can go from your entire world to a stranger with your memories.

It’s one of the cruelest things about growing up; realizing that love, loyalty, and history aren’t always enough to keep someone in your life.

I think I’ve started to become more careful, share less, hold back more. I wait a little longer to open up, before letting anyone in, and when I do, there’s always a part of me that’s hidden.

And so, I’ve learnt how to protect myself in quiet ways. I laugh when I’m supposed to. I say I’m fine even when maybe I’m not. I became good at depending on myself and no one else. Needing someone feels dangerous. I’m not sure if I can allow myself to be vulnerable to someone else again.

Adult relationships aren’t like the ones you dreamed about when you were younger. They’re more complicated. People are more distracted. Everyone has their own lives, their own baggage, their own walls up. You care, but sometimes from a distance.

I think a lot about the people who are no longer in my life. There are moments I’m up at night thinking about the conversations that used to feel endless and I miss them.I miss the way things felt easy with them, like they just got me. Like I didn’t have to explain myself. And now, even if I understand why some of them faded, it doesn’t stop myself from feeling hurt. I still catch myself reaching for my phone, thinking, they’d understand this, before I remember we don’t talk anymore.

It reminds me of that quote, how we’re all just made up of the people we used to know. And lately, I’ve been thinking about how true that feels.

There are pieces of people I’ve loved and lost that still show up in me, even now. The way I laugh at certain jokes, or when I come across their favourite snack at the grocery store. Some of the music I still play when I’m sad? That’s theirs. The way I say certain things? That’s theirs too.

Even when people leave, they don’t fully go. Little parts of them stay. They linger in habits, in phrases, in the way I react to certain things without even thinking. And I guess that’s the strange part, even when someone is no longer part of your life, they can still live in the background of it. Still shaping you in ways you don’t always notice.

If you made it to the end, thank you. I wrote this as a way to give shape to something I’ve carried quietly for a long time. If any part of it resonated with you, I hope you feel a little less alone in it.

Sometimes just naming the ache is a start.

And if you’re still showing up, still trying, still hoping . that’s more than enough.

— A.