I've found this great in-between and it's the only place I know how to totally exist. In between child and adult. In between a home with my parents and getting my own place. In between being my own person and needing validation from others. I can't get through a day without consulting someone about what I should eat, what I should wear, how I should workout, where I should permanently mark my body with a tattoo.

I haven't figured out to be the person I am by myself, and as fiercely as I scream my angsty temper tantrum about wanting to be an adult, it falls into a whisper every time I need the reassurance of another person to feel like I am living a life and not just existing. The loneliness isn't the problem, the problem is that I don't know the value of any experience if it isn't a shared one. So where is the end of the in-between? When do I get to feel whole by myself? Will I ever not feel a little chip taken out of me whenever someone disagrees with me or the next time I shrug off a sunset because I don't have someone next to me to point it out to? Will music someday sound as good to me when I am alone as it does when I get to share a song with a friend for the first time? Will I ever eat a meal that satisfies me all on its own without texting someone to let them know that 12th Avenue bagels are just so delicious? When is enough, enough and when am I enough? I go to bed at night and I cannot sleep because I am not happy with the person in my bed, and it's only me.

Many people have what pop culture calls FOMO, or fear of missing out. But I suffer from what I call FOOPMO; fear of other people missing out. Feeling as if for an experience to be good, it has to be shared with other people. Most of this can probably be credited to the fact that we became adults in an age of social media, where how much fun you had is gauged by the number of likes you get on the pic you post after the fact. It always feels like you just aren't enough, like anything good, isn't good until someone worthwhile thinks so.

So to the girl who hates being alone, it's OK. It's OK to want to share things and someday you won't have to share every tiny experience, or find validation in how others feel. Someday you will be so full of good times; stories that only you can tell because someday your company will be plenty. Someday when we leave this great in-between of almost adult and almost living on our own, and when we become who we are meant to be, that's when we will be able to live selfishly and with no regard for who gives a damn about what tattoo we got or what we ate for lunch.