Alone

I remember when I visited Paris with my father when I was 14, we stayed in the smallest hotel you could imagine. It had three separate rooms and each was a bedroom and a bathroom. My father and I of course were on the top floor and had to cart our bags up the tiny wooden staircase. After a few minutes of his not so muffled swearing and wrestling with the broken doorknob we made it into our room. There stood a four poster bed next to a window draped in off white lace curtains. My Dad sat in the one chair and I on the bed with a glass of wine. Peering out through the gaps in the lace I could see the lights of Paris, I could smell the food and hear the people. I was in one of the busiest and most exciting cities in the world. As I sat and sipped from my glass I became confused as if something inside of me had gone back in the other direction. And then I realised what it was. I had never felt so alone. It wasn't an unsettling or disheartening thought. It just took me by surprise. And now I sit in Kenmore, on my couch, in my own home, at 10:30 at night and it took me by surprise again.