Facets of Celia Stone

1. Flatmate

Welcome!

Song: golden hour (orchestral version, instrumental) by JVKE

***
A ray of sunlight slipped through the window blinds. On the other side of the medium-sized chamber, this casted shadows on the white wall. The warm light of the golden hour made the room glow softly, comfortingly.

A young woman sat on her bed, a cushion behind her back, and a blanket over her legs tucked up to her chest. Her brown eyes were fixated on her phone screen, scrolling lazily.

Inside, her thoughts were muddled, gaining and losing shape, floating.

A small crease appeared on her forehead. It was the only indication that something was tossed and turned around in her head.

Can someone extroverted be very lonely?

Celia would have to answer that question with a "yes" - even though she didn't enjoy acknowledging it. She was extroverted and well-liked all around. Still, she felt lonely more often than not and was eager for some attention and empathy. For someone to care. For someone to reach out and listen. How did that fit together? It bothered her.

It was a Friday afternoon, and she hadn't really left her shared flat in the past two days. Barely even left her room. She felt too lazy to do anything else. Cooking, texting, working - it all required energy she just did not manage to bring up.

This stood in stark contrast to her usual abundance of energy of her extroverted and bubbly personality when interacting with others. This side of her character she enjoyed the most. However today, even thinking about it just felt exhausting.

Luckily enough, in the past, the energy has been there when she really needed it: she left her shared student flat and was never late to uni or to hand in assignments within a deadline. She remembered birthdays, texted and made birthday cards. She painted, wrote, sang, still, she felt numb. 

This was only increased by the fact that she had no on-site university classes the past weeks since her Master's program was very much focused on teaching the students how to write academic papers - and that was a very solitary task. She had a paper hand-in in a week.

And she felt the need to call home. She switched from Instagram to 'Contacts' and first called her younger sister, Fleur, closest to her in age.

No answer. She was probably out meeting friends. Fleur was the badass sister. If Celia had to discribe her in three words, she would say: mysterious, stylish and headstrong. Before she could even drive a car she had her motorcycle license. She loved to explore and test limits. To take risks. 

Then, she called her youngest sister, Opal.

No connection. She was definitely also out doing stuff. Opal was quite a few years younger than Celia, but had grown into a character strong teenager. Three words that came to mind when Celia thought about her youngest sister were: mischivous, honest, affectionate. Her youngest sister really was one-of-a-kind and coupled with teenage years a force to behold.

Lastly, she called the home number. But no one picked up. Yes, Friday was always a busy day. And their dog wouldn't be able to pick up ... or was accompanying one of them. God knows had she tried - of course jokingly - to convince her family to train the dog to have a video call. But no chance. She had to work with what she had - often a distant view on the most beautiful, cuddly being she knew.

They had picked her up from a shelter a few years ago. While the stray dog - they had named her Bella - had first been very hesitant and scared, she now trustingly let them pet her gently. She turned out to be eager to learn new tricks but never without food involved. She just didn't play and run after a stick.