We all belong here.

In high school, I was so afraid of being labeled a loner or — being one — that I did everything in my power to stop it from happening. I swallowed my pride. I would ask just about anyone if I could sit with them at lunchtime. I would even pretend to be someone I’m not, just so I would “fit in,” so they would like me. That’s how desperate I was.

And for a while, it worked. I had a group I could sit and hang with… but it didn’t make me feel any less lonely. I realised you can be surrounded by a room full of people and still feel lonely. On the surface, it seemed okay (I didn’t look like a loner), but beneath all of it, I was truly alone. Not only that, it was exhausting, and I was only hurting myself.

When I finally had enough, I said to myself, “enough is enough,” and mustered the courage to walk away from all of that. I ended up sitting alone, and now I was truly a “loner.” It was scary, and sometimes I wonder if I made the right decision. But being alone felt better than being in a group that made me feel lonelier. It was liberating.

It’s okay to be lonely. It’s not something you have to deny or run from.

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Since starting uni, I've met so many amazing people and formed great connections with others. I feel that I have so many friends, yet still feel alone. How many of them can I hang out with spontaneously? How many of them can I be vulnerable with? How many people can I truly be myself around? And not just people who want to hang out with me because I'm 'fun'. I'm around so many people and yet I'm lonelier than ever.

"I had never experienced true loneliness until the first night I moved to another city, in another state, for university. I was suddenly truly alone. Two thousand kilometres from home. In the dark, I couldn’t hear my dad’s heavy footsteps or my sister slamming doors, only the sound of possums on the roof, or a train horn in the distance.

Days gave no relief. I had the whole day to myself. All twenty four hours to fill. With nobody at the end of it to ask how it was, nobody to share dinner with, to commiserate over my gluggy spaghetti or burnt mince. Dessert of microwaved porridge, the bowl warming my lap.

I met a few people at O-week but these connections led nowhere. And I had a job but it was only weekends in a bar, where no one seemed interested in talking, and so my voice remained silent and unused. The weeks loomed long and large, passing by slowly.

At night, I would stay up late, looking at the lights of the city from my window, wondering what everyone else could possibly be doing.

I had always loved reading; a solitary activity, but I lost this love, and retreated into my own head. I spent a lot of time walking, earphones in, walking to nowhere, doing laps of the block, walking well into the night, returning home in the dark, too exhausted to think about anything except to crawl into bed and listen to the possums on the roof.

It was the loneliest period of my life."

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Loneliness is the absence of someone that you can trust and rely on during your worst and best times, someone who can resonate with your experiences. When you are alone you can only persevere so much before you need someone else to help you bear your burden. Once you find this person, you both become an unbeatable force taking on the world and everything it has to throw at you.

This artwork represents interconnectedness through the organic lines and shapes. When we are connected we see each other. To see.