Things are quieter for me these days, and it’s hard to feel excited about much. My warm group of friends in Atlanta always seemed surprised when I told them I was shy, and it got to where I almost maybe believed that I was no longer the shy girl I was for most of my life. Now it’s undeniable—I can barely bring myself to speak, and here I am in a new town that feels so closed off to me. It’s the very thing that always made me cry most, on therapists’ couches and at parties and alone in my teenage bedroom: I have no friends.

The leaves are beginning to fall and the air feels crisp in the morning and at night. I can’t enjoy the way the leaves change color and then drift to the ground because all I can think of is that soon the trees will be bare and the sun will be gone for months on end and I’m fucking terrified about it. Halloween is just a few weeks away, and it feels like there isn’t really a point to it; there’s no party to attend, no one to craft costumes with. I think this fall will be lonely and dark, and I’m very afraid about how it will all make me feel.

photo by julie reeman