lonely is as lonely does

When I lived in Kokura I had Sundays and Mondays off work. I would finish teaching on Saturday and make three stops on my way home: the grocery store, the bakery, the video store. At the grocery store -- coffee, miso, noodles, a vegetable if I could identify it, eggs. At the bakery -- I still miss the pastries they had, light flaky dough, heavy with rich cream on the insides. At the video store, five movies, maybe more. Then I would go up to my apartment on the 10th floor and not leave again until Tuesday. I listened to mix tapes my ex-boyfriend sent in what I now realize was less a gesture of continuing friendship and more an attempt to get me back; he was playing to his strengths, he made the best mixes. I wrote letters, long honest poetic letters (playing to my own strengths) -- the kind I would have liked to receive. I cleaned from one side of the apartment to the other, the tatami pressing into my knees as I wiped it down. Sheets outside drying crisp in the gray air. I sat under the heated kotatsu table, blanket pulled up under my arms, and watched movies with a gluttony matched only by how I tore through those pastries, powdered sugar fingers. Sometimes I filled the bath, which took an hour, scrubbed myself head to foot and then gingerly lowered myself into the scalding water. I was so attuned to myself then. In my memories, I was sometimes happy and sometimes I was very very sad. I don't think I was lonely, though, not exactly. Gradually I met people, let them in, and because my home was a place where I was so content it became a place where other people were also content, and I liked that. Generally I don't like people, don't like animals, don't like most things beyond my understanding, being primarily an indoor person with books and music and television, which I understand. I've been thinking about this with the current epidemic. This is not particularly hard for me. Even at my most social, at least half of my relationships are long distance. I realize I live with someone now, so it's different. But I'm thinking about friendship. I do love some people, in a physically present and tactile way, and having spent 30 years learning how to do that, it is weird to not be able to. Not hard, not yet, but weird.