to the horizons i go

by OLIVIA DU

layout PRANAV SUBRAMANIAN photographer KIM PAGTAMA stylist MARNIE MATTHEWS hmua ADRIANNE GARZA & ELLIANNA ARREOLA models REBEKAH VERGHESE & SUSANNA WANG

Underneath the wide expanse of moon and sun, I learn to love myself.

The moon, a curious giant, peers into my room. She sees me drowning in billowing swaths of darkness, ensnared by the crippling thoughts of unspoken regrets and paralyzing fear, and she moves on. I am left behind, trapped in the cages of my thoughts. And I am alone.

When I was younger, every time I felt lonely at night, I would stumble to my mom’s bedroom in the dark and ask her to lay with me until I fell asleep. The warmth of someone nearby was just enough to lull me into repose. In my budding years, the same need manifested in the words, “妈 妈, I’m lonely.” Met with the gentle but firm reminder, “睿睿. . . In order to truly grow up, you need to learn how to be happy alone.”

But Mom, I’m 18 now, and I’m still rattling inside a too-big body. Happiness comes easiest when there are things to do, friends to meet, and people to love. I exist to be preoccupied by the bustle of study dates at the bookstore and steamy hotpot in the frosted November air. When surrounded by the people I love, I am a star that has formed a constellation for astronomers to point their telescopes at; I am complete. Alone, I feel as if I’m stranded on the far side of the moon.

To clarify, I’m not talking about the childlike fear of getting lost at the grocery store. Or bingeing a new show by myself. Or even spending quiet evenings alone at home. I’m talking about the emptiness that gouges me slowly from within — the feeling of unexplained tears that sharply prod my eyelids when I lay in bed and make shapes of the bumps on the crackly ceiling in desperate attempts to untangle myself. That type of loneliness. Not the fear of not being with other people, but the discomfort of being with myself. Thoughts I do not want to think of surface each time. Why don’t I know what I want? Why can I capture nothing of myself in words on paper or essence in soul? Why do I feel so heartbroken? Where is my peace?

The pale, lonely figure pinned to the sky blinks quietly in answer. Like every other night, I close my eyes to the faraway sound of music and cover this festering sore of mine, until the phone screen finally dims, and darkness envelops all.

“She sees me drowning in billowing swaths of darkness, ensnared by the crippling thoughts of unspoken regrets and paralyzing fear, and she moves on.”

The numbers on the clock pulse a dim red as the display reads 5:00 a.m. I sit up in bed, aware that I don’t belong in this secret chamber of time. When I look out the window, the sun and moon seesaw at each horizon, beginning the process of replacing each other in the sky. I am rooted in the center. In between, I crave the warmth of the sun and fear the cold of the moon. With a hand pressed against the glass, I feel the cool morning air humming outside. For once in my life, I have a desire so intense it rips me out of bed and down the stairs like a madman. Unexplainably vivid emotion guides my body out the door and propels my steps faster and faster. I need to escape.

I find myself running and running and running until my legs scorch like hot stones and the balls of my feet prick push pins with every step until each breath escapes out of me like desperate grasps at a fleeting lifeline. I don’t know what I’m running towards, but I know I’m running away. I run fueled by frustration over-dependency, over myself, over why I can’t seem to grow up, over WANTING TO LOVE MYSELF ENOUGH TO LOVE SPENDING TIME WITH MYSELF.

“Not the fear of not being with other people, but the discomfort of being with myself.”

“It’s a thought that leaves sweet residues of exuberance and relief, the kind that comes rushing in saccharine tears.”

I stop. My hands clutching the trembling curves of my knees. My chest heaves in, out, in, out, in . . .

I look up.

. . . out.

Shades of red, yellow, fleeting rose, and amber illuminate the sprawling sky above. The grey fog that snaked over my shoulders sheds into a brilliant cacophony of color. Swatched across the sky was the most candescent, glorious sunrise sashaying between the criss-cross of pearl-like clouds.

Right now, I am the only person in this world. And I fill up every inch of this silence. I am more alone than ever, but I feel more alive than ever. As the sweat drips down my temples and the muted pain of a dry throat beats in a quick tempo, I can feel myself for the first time — every humming fiber and cell of my being — and I am rising. Rising like the sun.

Can I be enough? I know I don’t want to run with my eyes closed and heart heavy. Perhaps being alone is freeing? It’s a thought that leaves sweet residues of exuberance and relief, the kind that comes rushing in saccharine tears. I walk the long way home instead, down the winding road patterned by golden streams of sunlight; my eyes wide at the irradiated world. I dance underneath a symphony of skies playing just for me. And I am happy.

When night settles once again, and I gravitate towards the questions that slip out uninvited, I place them instead as reminders of where I want to go. I remember the adrenaline that flooded me that morning, and it’s a rushing ravine that I can’t help but wade deeper into. Being alone is exhilarating. Addicting. It pushes me to find myself amidst this mundane preoccupation, and I learn to keep pieces of who I am tucked inside the supple pockets of alone time that I sew. I capture outlines and rough sketches and feel a little less heartbroken when I realize I am more than nothing.

Sometimes I find myself running too fast, too blindly, just like I did that morning, so I remind myself: slow down, take your time, look up. Think of the warm, honey nostalgia of nights with your mom, and cherish that soft in-between instead of racing against time. Decelerate in orbit for even just a second, and realize that the moon outside isn’t lonely. Realize that she is stable and assured in her solitude.

She is wholly her own.

For me, happiness in solitude is the liberation of cutting my long hair alone underneath the bathroom’s fluorescent lights. It hums with the car engine accompanied by my off-key singing when I drive and triumph over the small this-and-that of everyday life. Happiness lies patiently in the surrounding silence that amplifies my other senses instead: the vivid green swaying of the leaves, the peaceful embrace of the wind, the textured, rough wood of the bleachers that leaves swirled imprints on the bottom of my thighs. Happiness in solitude is absorbing twilight’s serenity instead of filling it with artificial noise. That way, every night, I ride the waves of my billowing thoughts like the free, fierce girl I dream of becoming, and I can almost reach the moon. This is my peace.

Happiness is watching the sun rise and the moon set, and the moon rise and the sun set in never-ending cycles. It is seeing their singular, celestial body reflect my own. Rising and falling, over and over again. To the horizons I go. ■