24 Feb 2015

GUEST BLOGGER: 'LONELINESS'

My good friend is a really amazing writer. She wrote a piece and e-mailed it to me (because that's what writer friends do). I loved it so much that I basically forced her to publish it. Because it's so personal, she doesn't want to her name to appear. It's an honest, vulnerable piece that speaks to all of us in those quiet, lonely moments.

Thank you, my friend, for having the guts to write this (even though no one else will know).

I added a photo I took for our shared love of airports.

I love that you know how cathartic writing can be.

Much love to you.





Loneliness

By Anonymous

Have I settled into this loneliness, so used to being alone that I don’t even recognize it as something I don’t want? Is this maturity, this wanting to spend quality time by myself even as I yearn to spend time with someone, anyone, just so I don’t have to face the quiet? Why must I have nights that shock me with their loneliness even after I start the evening feeling happy with my solitude? Surely I have grown past the adolescent roller coaster of emotions that sway from side to side, moment to moment, depending on theme music from a TV show or how long it takes the water to boil?

And yet, here I am. An adult by all measures except in my own head. Feeling unsettled, unmoored, unsatisfied. Wanting more for myself, seeing it all play out in my head, yet being unable to grasp the golden ring because of inadequacies both real and imagined. “Will I ever get there?” I berate myself even as I smile to passersby and lie to those close to me about hope and belief and trust in a system. Even as I sometimes believe those lies myself. Is it wrong to want more, to want better, when those things seem so foreign to someone in my place? Is it wrong to pine for things I think I deserve? Or am I deserving but will never see those things because I remain passive, thinking life will come to me?

I want. That’s it, in summary. I don’t need, as I have proven over and over again while I soldier on with my lack of career and my loneliness. As I trudge through day after day knowing I’m worth more than others are seeing, watching the clock wind down so I can hope that tomorrow will bring me something better. I want. I want to be challenged and fulfilled and excited by my work. I want to move up and over the rut I've been stuck in. I want to be recruited. I want to be appreciated. I want to be wanted. I want to like a boy. I want a boy to like me. I want children. I want to decorate my own house. I want a dishwasher. I want to fast forward ten years just to see if I get any of these things. I want to rewind ten years to make sure I do.

This loneliness, surely it will end? Surely the calm that settles in most evenings will one day remain and will not turn into the despair I face so often? I act. I act happy and sure of myself and like I believe in my future. And sometimes I even mean it. But there’s a storm raging inside me, seething, that this is where I am. That this is where I am but that you are over there and I don’t think I’ll ever reach you and that I’m livid and distressed and sad about it. Is it cliché to say that it’s not fair? To say that I deserve it too and that I’m savagely jealous that you’re there and I’m here with my loneliness? Am I alone, as always, in this?

No comments :

Post a Comment