On loneliness
30 Mar
I live in a city of four million people. Yet I am lonely.
I sleep forty feet from my immediate family. Yet I am lonely.
I work–in solitude–on most days. So I am lonely.
I have 127 friends on Facebook. Yet I am lonely.
I go out with a few honest to god real friends. But I am lonely.
I am pleasant with another fifty or sixty people. I am still lonely.
I don’t have a boyfriend. My loneliness is only magnified.
I talk to far away friends. And I am lonely.
Because despite all the things I have and all the things I don’t have, I spend the majority of my day living alone and on mute. This loneliness follows me wherever I go. A bank teller will glance at me and I think he can see it in my eyes. She’s lonely. I smile at the widowed grandmother in black and I refuse to look directly at her. Because then her loneliness and my loneliness will merge into one seemingly endless pool of loneliness. I see loneliness everywhere. I wouldn’t know where mine ends and another person’s begins.
I know other people get lonely too. They’ve told me so. In hushed conversations about life and death and love and family; they confess, ‘You know, I’m lonely too.’ I watch people on the street, moving, walking, passing, living. How do they live with their loneliness? How can they not–pause–like I do and massage my chest with my hand? It is the closest I can get to nursing my heart without tearing it out of my chest and laying it in a pile of rainbows and lollipops. But if I did that there would just be a gaping hole and that is what it already feels like…
…so how do they feel it and push past it? Maybe they sense it but don’t give it a name? And if there is no definition it can’t be real, right? Maybe they drink to get over it. Attend party after party to avoid it.
I don’t blame them. Loneliness is torturous. Each time I wander into it, I see that it is true and empty and senseless and unreasonable. It is everywhere.
Why wasn’t I warned? Why didn’t anyone tell me growing up that I would feel this way? That we would all feel this way? When the time comes, when I have children of my own, and they fear the dark and they fear the empty space beneath their bed I’ll tell them what has taken me years and years to learn:
When Loneliness lands on your doorstep, you should welcome it in. Offer it a cup of tea, have a chat. Loneliness has lots to teach you. Then when you’ve taken all you can, you should promptly shove it out the door.
Tell me–whisper if you must–are you lonely?





