A Letter to a Friend... Yes, You

You feel alone.

I've been alone too. Somehow, in a world filled with people circling all around you - brushing past you in the street, on the train, on the bus - it is possible to feel as though you are the only one in it. To feel like everyone else exists in the world, and you're just a passenger, being dragged along on a long drive with the seatbelt cutting into your neck. You are walking down the street and an invisible screen is keeping you from them. They can't see you, they can't even hear you. 

You are alone. 

But in your aloneness, you are not. There are hundreds, thousands, millions of other people in the world thinking the same thing. I was one of them. Staring at the best parts of people's lives posted online. The parties they threw, the experiences they had, the smiles they wore, the parts of the world they saw. If the whole world's a stage then you're just the audience. The world is blurred, like when you're tired or daydreaming and your eyes glaze over, except that your eyes are always glazed over these days, and you're separated from the world by a lens. Everything seems far away, even when it's right in front of you. You are looking out of a one-way mirror or a hotel peephole, and no-one is looking back at you. 

But, I've been looking for you, because there's something I need to say to you. Whether I've known you for 20 years, or for just a minute. Whether we spoke yesterday, 5 months ago, or once at a party. If you look long enough outta that peephole, the hotel door can open. Because this darkness, this loneliness, it isn't forever. I know that it feels that way now. I was once in the room you're in right now, wondering if anyone would ever even notice if I locked the door for good. If they'd miss me if I evaporated myself into the smoke of too many cigarettes or drowned myself in stormy red wineglasses. But then, the door unlocked and I left the room. 

I know I'm not the only one waiting to tell you this... Yes, you. No, don't turn around I'm not talking to anyone else... I'm looking back at you through the peephole. I see you there far away. I am calling through the door to tell you that there is no-one else on this planet like you. You are unique and brilliant. You are worth more than you know in this moment. There is so much you can teach the world that no-one else can. And there is so much that the world is waiting to give back to you.

Please know that you are not alone. 

Please know that you are loved, even from all the way over here. 

Know that the door unlocks. 

And when you're ready... open the door.