It’s been a little over a year since I last cut. . . actually, that’s a lie. I did once at the beginning of the school year. However, I refused to let that mistake reset me on my road to recovery- I only left a few marks and then put it down, so I consider it to be unproblematic in the grand scheme of things.

The issue is when I moved to Iowa I had no friends. For God’s sake I didn’t know anyone in this entire state. I simply leapt in and prayed that I would walk on top of the water instead of sinking beneath the waves. The first semester was, in a sense, easy. I was preoccupied by moving to a new place and settling into a new cranny within the world that I had not previously explored. This semester has been different. Despite the fact that I have a wonderful boyfriend, and that my roommates are goddesses, I can’t help but feeling an overwhelming sense of loneliness. I look around me and I see everyone out and about with their friends, but, the fact is, I don’t have anyone who I hang out with outside of the classroom or my dorm around here. If I lived alone I wouldn’t have anyone to talk to besides my boyfriend.

This thought is the wave that is threatening to pull me under. To be honest, I haven’t had real friends in two years. The kind you hang out with all the time, always talk to, and know everything about you. I used to have four best friends (pictured in the image above). Then one day they all suddenly decided to stop talking to me. They never did tell me why. I’d be lying if I said that didn’t almost kill me, but it didn’t so here I am stuck with ghosts of friend’s past.

I’ve tried to make friends here, and I’ve really put effort in. Starting conversations with people before and after class, going to school clubs, trying to get to know my co-workers, hell, I even e-mailed my councilor and asked her for help. So far I’ve turned up with a whole lot of nothing. Every time I think about this I feel my skin lusting after the blade I swore I would never pick back up. But dammit I refuse to fall back down the mountain I’ve spent the last year climbing.

I know that not everyone has a lot of friends, and that good friends are hard to come by; but is it too much, after two years of being lonely, to ask for one good friend? I’m not even asking for one good friend and five okayish ones- just one good one. Sometimes it’s hard for me to think that I’m ever going to get a good friend again- I’ve been at this shit for two years now. Despite this, and despite everything telling me that it’s never going to happen, I will keep trying to start conversations and find a friend. I will talk to every single person in this city if I have to because I know somewhere out there is a friend, and I’m going to find them.