Alone…
I am alone, so very alone. This is not anything new. I have been this way for a good portion of my life. No, the difference now is that I am lonely. I can do alone well, or at least I could. I didn’t need conversations or constant companions to be content. I didn’t need presence or visitations or phone calls. I am aware that you can be lonely in a crowd so it’s not the aloneness that’s the issue.
Along the way, I began to experience community and acceptance and belonging. I learned what it was to love and be loved, to be a part of. The numbness was replaced by emotions like joy and sadness, happiness and a range of others I had not felt in decades. Then community was ripped away and isolation, distancing, loss, and fear took its place. I didn’t know how to begin again, to risk again. Everything changed and no one was to blame. The disruption was out of our control and devastating.
So here I am, experiencing loneliness. A new experience for me and not a welcome one. It hurts. I am confused, or is it surprised, by my need. When you’ve gone from bland to flavour, it’s disappointing to go back to bland. When you have experienced life in HD, going back to analog bleaches colour and clarity from everything. Life is mundane, hum drum, uninteresting.
For years I planned and looked forward to retirement this year but have changed my mind as I could not bare the thought of zero human interactions for days on end. Yes, I am aware that I can choose to be amongst the madding crowd, but that choice is not so simple for me. It requires risks I am not sure I have the courage to take. My heart is battered and bruised, and I am not sure it can take another beating. Yet I am also unwilling to retreat into the numbness again so it’s a dilemma, a catch 22.