I have no social life. I used to be okay with that. I used to think that I only needed myself, that I have somehow risen above man’s inherent need for companionship through some form of enlightenment that I experienced at a very young age.

God, I was so fucking stupid. My loneliness has shed some perspective on my life and my situation.

I always thought I was the chosen one; for what, I’m not quite sure, but I thought it would come to me in time. I thought that day in the desert lifted me up, awakened me to my truth, but you know what? that was just a fairy tale my mind constructed to shelter me from the storm.

When I was five years old, my mother left. She didn’t say she was going to the store. She didn’t say she’d come back for me. She didn’t say she loved me and just needed some time. She didn’t say anything at all. My father was at work, I was on the ratty old carpet in our living room, and she was on the couch watching soaps, her eyes glazed over, staring just beyond the screen into absolute nothingness. Then she looked around at all we didn’t have. We didn’t have a home; we had a trailer. We didn’t have nice things; we had a couch that was picked up from a dumpster. She didn’t have a career; she had me. She didn’t have a man she loved; she had my father.

She turned to me and snarled. She put her hands on the knees of her ripped second-hand jeans and stood up, never breaking eye contact with me. She went to the kitchen and grabbed a diet lemon Snapple and a box of cheese and crackers, the kind with the little red sticks for chees application. She stuffed them into her canvas bag along with a few pairs of clean underwear from the basket of freshly -laundered clothes on the scratched kitchen table. She picked up the keys to her rusted 1979 Nissan pick-up truck and stood by the door, one hand on the knob and the other pushed against her eyes. She took a deep breath and gazed at me. If I had known it was the last time, I would’ve grasped her so tightly that she’d be forced to either stay or take me with her. But I hadn’t and I didn’t and I guess I was too young to know. She turned the handle and walked out of my life forever.

When my father got home that night, all the lights were off in our trailer. I wasn’t allowed to turn them on because the switch had a tendency to spark, so I sat quietly on the couch in the dark with my knees pulled p to my chest and my thumb in my mouth.

He walked in with his old lunch pail in his hand, exhausted from his long day in the grocery store.

He flicked on the lights, swore under his breath at the shock, and noticed me on the couch, sucking my thumb like a baby. He looked around the room and saw that my mother wasn’t there even though he knew it when he pulled up and saw that her truck was gone. He knew that she left.

He knew she was gone and still he offered me nothing in the way of comfort other than a peck on the cheek before he made us spaghettios for dinner. That night, he let me snuggle up to him on the couch while we watched meaningless sitcoms featuring perfect families with mothers that would never dream of leaving their children. We never spoke, but somehow, I felt like we were going to be okay. He carried me to bed, tucked me in, and kissed me goodnight.

In the morning, he woke me up before he had to go to work. It was summertime, so I couldn’t go to school while he was away from home. He didn’t know anyone he could call to watch me. He asked me to be a big girl, stay inside, eat the bologna sandwich he made and put on a reachable shelf in the refrigerator, and not answer the door just for the day while he figured out what to do with me. He rested his big hands on my small shoulders and looked me square in the eyes. I willed myself not to cry because I felt like he was going to leave me forever too if I did. I nodded my assent, he kissed the top of my head, and promised he’d be back as soon as he could.

I promised and I tried hard to do what he asked, but hours feel like days to a child and soon I was antsy, itching to go outside despite the fact that I wasn’t the kind of little girl that particularly enjoyed outside. I put on a pair of light blue denim shorts, a white tank top, my mother’s large yellow floppy hat, and my pink sparkly jellies.

I went outside and everything looked unfamiliar because the last time I saw it, I had a mother. I looked out beyond the bounds of our park and saw the desert sizzling in the distance. I thought she could be out there. I began walking.

Before long, I was thirsty and tired. I could feel my fair skin burning and was thankful for my hat. I kept going.

I kept going until I got lost. I found a rock to huddle under and I wept. I wept because I was lost and I knew I would be forever without her. I wept because I couldn’t understand why she’d leave me. I still don’t. I wept because I didn’t know if my father would ever find me.

I slept under the rock that night. When I woke up in the early morning light, I was too afraid to leave. Eventually, the search party found me, but I was so dehydrated and delirious that I had to be hospitalized for a week.

When I finally got to go home, I was afraid of the power of my father’s love and his profound need to protect me. I climbed into myself, telling myself that the time in the desert combined with his fierce love for me would make me strong.

I told myself that I never needed anyone but him. I grew up. He died.

And I’ve been alone ever since.