I am sitting on an old wooden picnic table. The woods are dark not as quiet as I would like them to be. Children sleep in the cabins all around. I am their only guardian. My fifteen-year-old heart pounds in my chest as I imagine all that could go wrong. I sit in the darkness, unable to unclench my jaw, and wait for this solitude to end.

I am surrounded by the cornfield. Swallowed by it. As the light leaves the sky, the swaying stalks seem to close in. Perhaps I am walking in circles. When I entered this field, I thought it would take no time at all to reach the other side. I have miscalculated. I am lost. What was once an innocent foray has become a much more sinister situation. I have never felt more alone. The chill sets in, and I begin to fear I will never escape this cornfield.

I am behind the steering wheel, palms sweaty and fingers shaking. I look around, soaking in the surreal awareness of my responsibility. I have never been alone in a moving vehicle before. The streets seem exponentially more dangerous than before. No one to give advice. No one to warn of danger. It is exhilarating. I am terrified. I smile and press the accelerator.

I am in college now. It is my first night, and my room is empty. Quiet. I live here now. I get organized. I clean and tack pictures of friends up on the cork board. The solitude of my deserted dorm weighs on me. The next four years of my life press on me. It is too much to think about. I need a distraction. I cannot be alone. I leave my dorm and start knocking on doors. Maybe someone will play cards with me.

I am cold because the fifteen-passenger van is turned off and the city street that I am parked on is an icy gray color. I wait because my job is to wait, but my head is moving in a thousand different directions. What I feel is something I have never felt before. I cannot breathe right. I am shaking and breathing heavy. I move to the back of the van and listen to the city move all around me. I don’t know it, but I am experiencing heartbreak. I have never felt more alone than this moment.

I am wrapped in a blanket. My top bunk wobbles with every motion. It is rickety by design and a serious hazard if you care about that sort of thing. My roommates sleep around me. I thought I would feel safer with them close by, but the anxiety attacks aren’t afraid of sleeping college students. I need to escape. The late hour does not deter me. I leave the dorm, the hall, the building. The night is bitingly cold. I need to be alone. I have never needed to be alone before. I get in my car, and I pray. It feels like I’m praying for the first time.

I am breathing in the heavy scent of the summer forest. I hear babbling voices down by the waterfall, but I step away from them. I seek out the solitude. The golden spider webs of sunlight dance on the rocks of the riverbed. I find a spot and ease myself into the water. Alone and happy. For the first time in my life, those two words are not mutually exclusive. I turn my eyes to the majesty of Creation around me. I breathe and keep breathing.

I am alone. Sometimes. I am okay most of the time. I had to learn the reality of human need. Sometimes I want people. Sometimes I need them. Presence does not mean love. Absence does not mean abandonment. Leave me alone, and I’ll find a way to survive because full solitude doesn’t really exist. Loneliness is a reminder that we are not alone. It took many lonely nights for this to be revealed to me. Seek solitude, and you’ll find God. Seek community, and you’ll find Him too. Just seek something.