I’m fucking lonely.
Okay, I know that I am not actually lonely, but I sure as hell feel it, and I’m here to talk about it.
It’s an odd thing to know that I have many humans in my life that genuinely love me, and that I still feel lonely.
Why is that? Is it because my friends are just as busy or busier than I am? Is it because everyone else is going through their own version of suffering and don’t have the actual space or energy to share? Is it that I’m just so different than how I used to be that I just don’t quite know how to find my way in a town I’ve now lived in for a year and a half, and a state that I’ve lived in and out of for 15?
Maybe it’s because my focus is mostly on the work that I love, rather than on play time. Maybe it’s because the cost of living here is so ridiculous that it doesn’t feel safe to slow down. Maybe it’s because it’s challenging to find and also build a community these days, which I (we all) desperately need.
I think it’s because people are wounded and are afraid to reveal their deepest most truest selves. I think it’s that I give so much of myself, that there is not much left at the end of the day, and it feels like there is no one there to catch me, nurture and sooth me.
I know that people care, and some reach out and send love, and there are efforts being made. Sometimes that’s not enough, and that’s okay (and sometimes it’s not). I yearn for peaceful evenings drinking tea just catching up. I long for a certain depth of connection that stirs my heart, and reawaken my soul. I want eye-contact, no phones, crickets chirping, and extra-long hugs.
I want slow mornings, breakfast with friends, walks in the woods and cold dips in an alpine lake. I know that my connection with nature is the spiritual grounding force that keeps my feet planted while my head is held high, witnessing all, allowing and flowing with the wind.
Listen. Slow down. Feel my heart. Feel it all. I’m fucking lonely, and the tears run like rivers down my face as they cleanse and move my grief. Wistful groans, craving something unknown maybe something that once was, or will still be.
Love. Yes, it is all around us…while at the same time life can be brutal. Life squeezes me, forcing me to feel my deepest sorrows. I choose not to turn away, but to turn towards. As I do, as I dissolve into fear and sadness, there is always a shimmer of light. This light that is there beside me, slithering, shedding, glowing and growing…always reassuring me that everything is okay. That everything is everything!
Loneliness comes in and then moves it’s way onward like a train, winding through lush valleys into the distance. Thank you for teaching me how to feel, and for reminding me how exquisite life can be on the other side.
