The loneliest thing about graduating is you start to have to build yourself on your own, in the crazy jungle called real life. Every little steps and choices start to matter. Every path and decisions has real risks that can either take you up or ruin you for good.

As we enter the productive working age, we are faced with an unevitable psychological challenge: Intimacy vs. Isolation (refer to Erikson's Psychosocial Stage). Which when you can build a good relationship, most preferrably with a lover, you will succeed. On the other hand, when you can't, you will have the tendency to isolate yourself, feel loneliness.

For the past year since I graduate, I could still feel fulfilled in terms of social support. I have a lot of closest friends and also someone special around me. I could share my life at night when I got home. I could feel the people who know me best; that they got my back. But then, everyone starts to leave. One by one. Whether it was because they moved to other cities, they focus on a more vital things, or even a fight with me.

In the end, loneliness starts creeping in. I start to feel that no one understands. That I can't trust someone to lean on, that they got my back. And the worst part of it was that my closest people don't even know the real me well. That there's a big chance they loathe me if they do. That being real doesn't mean being accepted, but rather turns everything upside down.

This world is harsh. And lonely. And sad.

One thing I know for sure, this is only a phase of my life that I will get through. And I might need to focus on friendship life first as a sublimation so that I won't end up letting the Isolation win.