It's difficult to enjoy things when nobody is watching.

You think it's depression, at first. A loss of interest or pleasure in activities. But that isn't quite right. It's not that you aren't interested in anything; it's just that it's all too much to handle by yourself. You watch a film that makes you cry and there isn't anyone around to cry with you, or even anybody to tell you that you're being ridiculous. The room is empty. The DVD menu music is playing. Your upstairs neighbor is fucking his girlfriend, and you can hear her screaming through the ceiling. Neither of them have seen the movie. You think you might post about it on social media, but what is there to say? You aren't a film critic. You just want somebody to cry with.

At some point, you will pick up new hobbies to fill the time. You'll paint a sticky-sweet storybook illustration of a cat baking muffins. You'll smear black and brown acrylic over someone's Paint & Sip sunset that they abandoned at Value Village. You'll draw a charcoal figure hunched over a kitchen sink. Looking at them either unsettles or elates you, but there isn't anyone around to be impressed or disgusted by any of it. It isn't good or bad enough to post online. You donate the ruined canvas back to Value Village and store the drawings in a box at your mom's house.