There is a unique time in my life when my crowded days become quiet, nights become still and my weeks become peppered with silence. It’s usually an unexpected time. Just when I become available, Casual Friends become busy, Close friends seem to drift apart, family seems so far away, and my most intimate comrades appear as if they’ve changed their mind about my relevance and significance. I must admit, I hate this time.
I hate it because it makes me recognize just how vulnerable and needy I am. Long are the days that I remember my independency. It in this state, that I’m reminded how human I am. How much of this social animal, needs the intimacy and contact of others. A need that for a certain period of time begins to fail to get fulfilled.
Those who say that people do not matter are probably telling a lie. And those who say that they can do without the crowd or the few or the connections for ever, is either as in the words of Aristotle, “a poor sort of being or a being higher than man”. I admit, I am neither. I lye in the middle. I straddle the fence between the extroverted and the introverted and that too much silence and distance makes me lonely. There! I said it!
So as I write these words at 4:00 am, I connect with the honesty of my heart and the reality of my days, to my own human reality and necessity.
There are those who may disagree with me, particularly those friends who see my face, talk to me throughout the day, hit me on social media. But loneliness is never a visual reality. Its not something you can access with ones eyes. It’s an emotional and psychological reality. A thousand souls can be around, but a part of you can still feel alone. A part of you that cant seem to get with the business of the day, the interests of the others. A part of you that cant feel the connection of the outside world and thus feels that something is missing and yearns for the moments when it doesn’t feel this way. Its not depression people. It’s the normal case of loneliness.
I have no solution on how to heal from such a lonely state, although it hurts like hell. I only recognize what happens to me when I arrive here. (and usually the steps are slow yet progressive).
The first thing I do is get in touch with my humanity, with my needs, and with my vulnerabilities. I allow myself to feel the void, to feel the wanting. I examine the yearnings for what they are, and then inspect their purity. For at times, we yearn not for a person as an end, but for persons as a means. If that’s the case, In my pride, Ill rather seek out the need than seek out the person. But at times I realize the means and the persons are one, and seeking one requires yearning for the other. It’s the honesty of what I feel that’s important here. So I give myself permission to yearn, to miss, to cry, to wonder, to read minds, and to wish.
The second thing I do is get closer to myself since that’s what my mind and heart only think I have at the moment. I affirm her. Talk to her. Encourage her. I also give her projects that reminds her of who she is; how special, gifted, and intelligent she is. The projects are no mere time wasters, but the acts themselves (creating, writing, reading, exploring, etc.) speaks to the me that I ought to yearn for the most. The exercises become more of a flirting activity; a seduction towards “knowing” and “wanting” the true me that lies deep inside and needs to come out.
The third thing I do is try and enjoy life, even with the void. One of the things I realize in my years of living is that people come and go, and life, if we are not careful will do the same. The only difference between the two, is that only one is really truly yours and its the only thing you can control. Your Life!
Why wait till the day becomes loud again and the nights full of clutter. The most sacred time, the most human of times, the most affirming time, the most vibrant times, and the most creative time, comes during the most loneliness of times.
I’m learning to embrace “such a times as these”.
