When the check is paid and you stay at the table

We don’t have a word for the opposite of loneliness, but if we did, I could say that’s what I want in life. What I’m grateful and thankful to have found... and what I’m scared of losing when we wake up... and leave this place.

It’s not quite love and it’s not quite community; it’s just this feeling that there are people, an abundance of people, who are in this together. Who are on your team. When the check is paid and you stay at the table. When it’s four a.m. and no one goes to bed. That night with the guitar. That night we can’t remember. That time we did, we went, we saw, we laughed, we felt.

...

We don’t have a word for the opposite of loneliness, but if we did, I’d say that’s how I feel... right now. Here. With all of you.

- Marina Keegan, The Opposite of Loneliness