how did I do that in grade four?

When I was in grade four I didn't have friends, I had books.

This has to be the story of many a former awkward-kid-turned-smart-adult. The thing that hit me as I walked into my apartment tonight is this: when I was ten years old, I couldn't give a rats ass.

Sure, I knew that most kids played outside with other kids. I was just blissfully apathetic to my seclusion. My tonic for loneliness was George's Marvelous Medicine. My personal universe was an odd cross between Narnia and the Secret Garden. I read back-issues of the New Yorker for shits.

Today I killed the evening at the cafe, reading books by myself.
But, unlike my gradeschool self, I kept glancing over my shoulder waiting for a friend to show. When I went home it was dark, and I felt lonely. If I spend an evening alone these days, I find myself feeling like the last person on earth.

It's a tiny, terrified sort of feeling. Like the whole world ended while I was sleeping, and I've woken up to abandoned cars in a silent city.

My disproportionate fragility at twenty one reminds me of some puppies I've known.
Puppies can't handle it when they're left alone, because they have no concept of a return. They just think you're going to walk out the door and never come back.

I'd much rather be like my cat.
He gives a cursory glance at me when I walk through the door as if to say "you again?" then sidles up to me when he feels like it.

My cat and my ten-year-old self would get along fine.