I woke up this morning and I was lonely. I felt it deep inside. I got up, did my business, got a drink of water and went back to bed. Days like this I don’t want to eat, talk or think–especially think. So, sleep is the best way to avoid that. But then I dream. (what’s a girl to do?)
So, I get up and post the journal entry I typed last night, with just a few edits, thinking that will make me feel better. But it doesn’t.
I take a shower, thinking I can wash away the feeling that is nagging at me. But I can’t.
I make a pot of coffee thinking it will wake me up and get me going. But it only made the ‘nagging’ feeling more intense. [I should remember NOT to drink coffee any longer. It’s not good for me.]
So here I am, alone with my thoughts. Damn it anyway, I might as well, just let it flow, then maybe I can scratch the itch that is nagging me. [edit: Caution this is a ramble, don’t expect it to make sense.]
Why is it that at the worst times in life, we withdraw? I do it. I do it all the time. I remember when my son died, I needed some comfort so badly and I pushed everyone away. Why did I do that? The pain was unbearable.
At the time I thought it was because no one could understand. Every comment seemed to frustrate me even more. Every condolence seemed to mock me in some way. It all made me feel worse somehow. It wasn’t their fault, I knew that; it was mine. Something so off about me, that I had to push them away. If I didn’t, well I don’t know what the alternative would have been. That’s what’s nagging me right now.
I wonder if at a moment of such sadness, and pulling away, I didn’t express my lack of trust for them all. Oh, not that they can’t be trusted, just that *I* did not trust them. Do I trust anyone? Have I ever? Do I pull away and withdraw because secretly I think that no one would be able to ‘be’ there anyway? Some sort of knee jerk reaction to what I believe will happen, not what will happen.
And in the loneliness of such times, the absoluteness of knowing I am alone, what purpose does it serve me? Is it like some self-fulfilling prophesy that I see myself ‘alone’ at all the major events of my life? Do I want to look back and say to myself, ‘hey, I was alone then, and always’? Do I need to ‘stand alone’ or ‘be strong’ to the point of punishing myself with loneliness at the most important times of my life?
And is there really a difference between being alone and being lonely? I wonder sometimes if we don’t use this as some sort of ‘badge’ of courage to show the world at large that we are fine, that we are not afraid or vulnerable. We make this distinction so that we can appear to be ‘whole’ even in our loneliness. But are we?
The same way we make the distinction between loving someone and ‘being in love’, as if there is a difference. One either loves or one does not. How we choose to express our love is the difference, not the definition of love. And yet, we all use this phrase to make distinctions. I’m beginning to think it is only to make ourselves feel less vulnerable. It also separates us even more from people we do love.
And if I express my loneliness to someone, would they feel responsible? How do we bring up such emotions without making a partner feel responsible? I think this is what has been nagging me. How can we begin to penetrate these kinds of emotions and share them without sending our S/O into guilt? Then I feel guilty, and that’s not progress at all. And so, do we all keep these feelings tucked safely inside, so no one we love will feel responsible? That’s a nice Catch-22.
Is that why we pull in and withdraw? Because we don’t want to make those we love feel bad? If they love us they surly will?
But what good is being loved, if it is not there at the times we need it most? See how confusing this can get?
We are all human, we are lonely at times. We ache from all the times we have been alone. We hunger for understanding and acceptance and yet we fear that it may never be a reality.
