The slow burn of loneliness.

Happy Fourth of July 2016 Everyone!!

It’s a beautiful day here in New England…lower 70s (now) and breezy with blue skies and puffy white clouds. I took the pups for a walk already before it got hotter and before I  have to take my afternoon nap in preparation for my 12 hour night shift. I chose a seldom traveled dead-end dirt road bisecting a forrest so I was in the shade with a breeze almost the entire walk. It was invigorating. There were a few others along with way who had the same idea – all in pairs. One or two were not so deeply involved with the conversations shared that they didn’t notice and say “hi” or “happy 4th” to me.

I am always so appreciative, like a puppy getting attention,  when I am noticed and the stranger is nice. Today it felt so good walking, the breeze and the blue and green of nature I became nostalgic, lonely and a little self-pitying. I’ve read posts by other people who are alone and lonely, who have to deal with the depression that accompanies a life of solitude (look, even depression has a mate!), chosen or otherwise, and I, while simultaneously understanding, tend to think, “they should do this or that because no one has to be lonely”. In reality though, it’s not as easy as it would seem. Making friends, being the new addition to an already established group, is not as welcoming as you might think or sometimes you meet someone with whom you do have common interests and both personalities just ‘click’ but the difficulty is with schedules, distances, etc. For me there have always been hurdles too numerous to even list. I’ve resigned myself to the fact, yes, fact, that I will live until I die alone. Some might think, ‘self-fulfilling prophecy’ but my intuition is as strong about this as the intuition of others who, when they meet their soul-mate, “just know”, or in business ‘just know’ a good deal. It isn’t that I want to be alone or that I don’t “try” – it just is.

Loneliness can be an overpowering feeling…it absorbs light like a black hole, our sense of reality becomes refracted like the light wave through a vacuum to the murky water of a pond. It’s hard to readjust the heavy, dull energy into a swift, light energy that attracts others. The ‘fake it till ya make it’ motto, when adopted and tried, usually rings false to many – ‘trying too hard’, ‘not authentic’, ‘hiding something’. I usually just be myself with the full knowledge that I can’t be anyone else and if someone is going to like me, it will be for who I really am, which is not a depressed, sour antisocial person. Somehow I manage just fine among my species without ever really making a bond with anyone.

Life also isn’t neat and orderly…like a school class: schedule, time in class, assignment, homework, learn and improve with effort shown on paper, work toward the goal then complete. There are too many obstacles, to many random interruptions, too many segues with new goals, multi-tasking. That doesn’t mean we can’t work on a goal, a self-improvement goal or be more aware and take opportunities when they appear but it isn’t linear and that means it takes more time, attention & effort. Or, well, we just adjust to our circumstances and find the meager joy in what we do have. That’s the path I try to take. It isn’t always easy but I don’t presume the lives of couples is easy either.

Burn, the slow burn of a life that eventually is extinguished. How am I going to spend what time I have left – even though I am at times lonely and always alone?