I have no idea what I'm doing. People talk about people like me - students, confused teenagers and young adults - and they always say the same thing. That we are coasting through life. I don't feel like I'm coasting. I'm drowning. Not in life, but rather wallowing in my own self pity and loneliness.

I'm three months into quarantine now. I haven't seen my mother in person for even longer. I miss her. Sure, I've seen her over video call and I cannot deny that is great, but that screen is a shade of my mother. Those pixels cannot possibly contain all of the micro emotions and expressions of her. A screen holds no testimony to a real conversation, because as much as you can try pretending that you are there with the person on the other end, you are simply not.

I had reached a level of understanding with the concept, this was until my housemate left earlier today. It's a shame really, but all good things must come to an end. We had actually been getting on really well lately. Since it had been just us for two months, in a six person house, we had managed to attain this understanding of each other. We would talk occasionally in the kitchen, a few times a day perhaps. Maybe, we would even watch a film. We hardly have similar interests, but when it boils down, we were one of the same. He left just six hours ago and I'm already writing this sorry story.

I can change the situation, of course. I could call her up. One quick utterance could change everything. "Mum, I need you to pick me up". But, what then? Can I honestly tell myself that I would get through three months at home? No, I would not. Being at university has thrust me into my own sense of routine, albeit an unstable one. I am not one of those individuals who can sleep at night. I writhe about in bed for hours, with the very concept of sleep being but a haze in the back of my mind. Everything else is a single soldier on a battlefield, fighting for a chance to reign. These imperfections are scarring my overall physique: envy, hatred and victimisation. I can feel them poisoning me from the inside, taunting me with false hopes and the realisation that right now, I am nothing but a speck of dust in someone else's consciousness.

Does this mean that I don't have a great set of friends? Not at all, in fact, the friends I have are amazing. For someone who would drift between crowds for the majority of his life, a sense of companionship that I have only just achieved is something incredible. It makes you understand just how toxic certain friends I'd held before had really been.

As for my group now, they've saved me on numerous occasions from my darkest thoughts. But they can't be around me all of the time. I need to learn to live without them, because I'm certain that they will start to dread the constant messages and calls I make to them in this desperate plea for conversation. I need to understand that plans get postponed or cancelled. I am terrified of being alone, for I know just how twisted my mind can become when given the chance.

I am trying to be a better person, a happier one. I'm really not finding that too easy, but I am trying nonetheless. Whenever I get chance, I will compliment others, even if said compliment is blanketed under a pool of sarcasm and humour. But it will be there still, like a small shoe at the bottom of the riverbed. My friends understand that I use said jokes as a defence mechanism. Really, it's the only real personality I hold besides my drive to be morally good. They understand me well enough to know that I don't always share my innermost thoughts. That I'd rather dodge or parry a personal subject rather than face it with courage.

But I am only human. So here I am, finally venting, even if it's just to myself. Venting. On a beautiful afternoon as well, all because I had a bad day.