The Girl Who Carried Loneliness

Once upon a time, there was a girl who lived in a house with many windows, and no doors.

Everyone could see in. She smiled at the right moments, waved back at the world, and said all the things you’re supposed to say when people ask how you’re doing.

From the outside, her life looked warm. Lit. Social. But on the inside, the air was still.

She was seen by everyone. But truly met by no one. And she’d go to bed most nights feeling like a room with too many echoes. A place no one had entered in years.

Loneliness doesn’t always look like absence. Sometimes it looks like over-functioning.

She had people. A calendar full of birthdays and meetings and catch-ups. She replied to messages. Showed up for others. Even gave really good advice.

But her own ache? She learned to quiet that. To tuck it under her strength.

“I’m the one people come to. Not the one they worry about,” she told someone once. And then laughed, like that was a strength.

We often think loneliness is about being alone.But sometimes, it’s about being everyone’s someone and still having no one to call when the silence starts to sting.

She wasn’t untouched by love — just untouched in the places that mattered most.

There were people who cared. But they didn’t know how to hold her truth.They loved her laughter, her warmth, her insight. But when she was quiet for too long, or too sad for too many days, things got awkward. Heavy.

“You’re so strong,” they’d say — and think it was a compliment. But what she heard was: “Don’t be messy here. Don’t be too much.”

So she became brilliant at being okay. And no one looked beneath.

Loneliness and Shame Are Old Friends

Some nights, she’d wonder why the ache wouldn’t go away. Her life was fine. She was “grateful.” Others had it worse.

Still, the silence inside her kept returning.

And then came the shame.

Am I too sensitive? Too intense? Is this just adulthood?

She began to wonder if the problem was her — this strange capacity to feel too much, want too much, long for a kind of closeness that seemed to exhaust others.

She didn’t realise it then, but her nervous system wasn’t overreacting — it was remembering. We’ve been here before, it whispered. And we’ve been hurt.

The strong one rarely gets asked, “How are you, really?”

She began noticing something.That she could hold space for ten people a day and still come home to an emptiness no one saw.

She was always the one listening. Always the one available. The support system.

But when her own heart felt heavy, her phone stayed quiet.

She wasn’t alone. She was just unattended to.

And that’s a kind of grief we don’t talk about — being loved for your light, but abandoned in your shadow.

And sometimes, there was no one. Not even a maybe.

There were seasons when she didn’t just feel lonely — she was alone.

Not emotionally unsupported inside a circle — but outside the circle altogether.

No safe friend. No gentle elder. No old roommate or thoughtful sibling or kind therapist. Just her, and the ache she carried from one room to the next.

“I have people’s numbers,” she once said,“But I don’t have anyone I can really call.”

It wasn’t drama. It was truth. And it was a kind of ache that didn’t scream — it just settled, like fog in the chest.

She learned to self-soothe. To watch shows with characters who felt more understanding than real people. To write. To work. To over-function.

But the lack of a support system wasn’t just loneliness. It was emotional invisibility. It was grief for something she had never had — and wasn’t even sure how to ask for.

That grief? It changes you. It teaches you to hold yourself in pieces, quietly, when no one else shows up. But it also teaches you what kind of presence you never want to withhold from others.

Sometimes, the body chooses solitude over disappointment.

She stopped reaching out. Not because she didn’t want closeness, but because every unanswered message felt like confirmation that she was asking for too much.

The solitude wasn’t peaceful. It was protective.

She told herself she was “just introverted.” But deep down, she knew: It wasn’t company she feared — it was not being met once she showed up.

But then, one day… something softened.

She told someone the truth. A real truth. Not the sweetened kind. Just… “I feel alone. And I don’t know how to say that without sounding dramatic.”

She waited for discomfort. For the subject to change.

But it didn’t.

The person said, “I’m glad you told me.” And stayed.

That was all. They just stayed.

The loneliness didn’t vanish. But it didn’t feel like exile anymore.

She still had lonely days.But now, she could name the ache without blaming herself for it.

She began building — slowly — a new kind of connection. One where she didn’t have to earn her place by being endlessly useful.

One where silence wasn’t abandonment. And needing wasn’t weakness.

If you carry loneliness like she did…

You are not broken. You are not too much. You are not hard to love.

You are simply someone who still longs for realness in a world that often settles for performance.

And that longing? It’s not something to hide. It’s something to honour.

Even if you tremble when you say it… say it. Even if your voice shakes… reach. Even if you carry loneliness like a secret — let someone see you carry it.

And maybe one day — like her — you’ll hear someone say: “You don’t have to hold it alone anymore. I see you. I’m staying.”