Make A Friend Everywhere You Go

There are many lonely little girls in the world; the same way there are lonely little boys

and lonely little adults.

Notebook, 19th Century Germany, vis Art Institute of Chicago

We cope with this loneliness in different ways: drugs, sex, work, books, music, movies,

pets, thinking, writing, dreaming, crying.

As a lonely little girl who grew up to be a lonely little girl who grew to be a lonely little

adult, none of these things ever made the feeling go away. I’ve experimented with drugs and

slept with people I probably shouldn’t have. I read hundreds of books and worked forty hour

weeks. I listened to music, made music and watched a different movie everyday. I adopted a cat

and moved into a house with five roommates. I wrote about loneliness, thought about loneliness

and cried about loneliness. I dreamed of alternate universes where I never felt such pain.

Nevertheless, the feeling lingered and spread and grew and made me into the “me” I am today,

which I can’t identify as a good or bad thing.

If you are reading this and are plagued as I am, I want you to know that it will never fully

go away. No matter how small it grows, it will remain.

I hope this doesn’t alarm or discourage you. It’s good for you to remember the feeling. It

reminds you of who you were and who you are now. It keeps you kind. It keeps you strong.

You understand how others must feel and recognize that we are all fighting the good

fight. We are all lonely people fighting desperately to get rid of that feeling. We are one and the

same.

The good news is that we can lessen the feeling, even if not eliminate it completely. The

way I lessen the feeling is by making a friend everywhere I go.

I try to talk to strangers, even though I sometimes feel too shy and awkward to do so. I

ask people about their hopes and dreams and fears and I tell them mine. I laugh with people,

but I also cry with them. How could I not?

I make a friend of music, and literature, and film.

(Don’t simply consume, but understand and feel.)

I wonder what the artist must have felt to create the song they did. I wonder if they ever

told anybody how they felt before they created the song.

I wonder if their art was their way of telling people.

I wonder if my art is my way of telling people.

I make friends with the trees. I listen to what the leaves tell me when they rustle in the

wind. I talk to the sun, moon, and stars. I wonder if they are lonely too. they must be, right?

They’re so far away from us. How could they not be?

I say hi to the neighborhood cats and the squirrels. If I’m lucky, I say hi to the chipmunks,

too.

I make a friend of God, who I’m not always sure is listening, but whom I talk to

regardless.

And during the quiet nights when my home is asleep and it feels as if I am the only soul

awake on Earth, I make a friend of myself.

Because even when I am “alone”, I never truly am. It’s much too easy to forget that, but

the more I remind myself, the better I feel.

Try to remind yourself of that too. I think you’ll feel better for it.

Briana Williams is a 22-year-old aspiring creative studying Journalism in Ohio. On her Substack blog, Peas and Beans, and in her private fiction writings, she prefers to write about themes that she — and many others — are too familiar with, such as loneliness, anger, and fear.