You can be lonely in solitude and in a crowd, but being alone is an illusion.
“I think we’re alone now,” or “I’ll stop the world and melt with you,” are some lyrics that quickly come to mind when I hear the word alone. Do we teach people these days how to be alone, quiet, bored, and with neither wanting or needing? Is it taught or learned? Is it a skill? I have been lonely in the midst of my family. Though I am definitely ‘alone’ when writing, I have never been lonely writing.
I suppose the long moments of being secluded in a room have instilled some sense of superhuman ability to tolerate quiet. I have come to realize, I have never truly been alone. I have been in rooms without other humans, but I was not alone.
I would rather be in a room alone than in a room with people feeling lonely. More precisely, being with family and feeling alone is worse than feeling lonely while being alone.
In the present moment, with limited ability to channel clarity, I neither deny my part of that interaction, nor do I blame others. Perhaps I could have put in more energy and or pretended to be enjoying what the others were doing, be that watching sports or what have you.
For whatever reason, I often chose to retire to a quiet spot and read. More often than not, it was my paternal grandfather’s study. There were books there. Records and reel to reels and the smell of dust and school supplies, ink ribbons and such. Books were friends, the gift of someone long ago directing a message directly to me, though I acknowledge not me alone.
Sometimes a certain family would come find me, as if I were lost and needed to be found. The chats would be brief, even welcomed but they never lasted.
The times I sought to connect with them didn’t happen. Perhaps I did it wrong or too late or, and I suspect this, they were just doing their things and I wasn’t a part of that. How many of us schedule family? In scheduling people, how many times does the priority of others fall away?
Me, my son, and friends…
I have a good solid friend who I have in-person time with, maybe 1 or 2 times a month. I have several good friends who I correspond with. My son has shared he wanted another sibling so he would never be alone. He wants someone to play with and to be there, full time. In reality, he is often annoyed by people his age. Maybe we all need to learn to fight better.
Dad was there full time, till the other moved. No disparagement on her. People prioritize what they will. That has always been true, of others and me, and how I feel about it hasn’t changed the reality of it. Perhaps had I better met the expectation of others to attend and prioritize what they preferred, I would not be alone in a box.
In general, I think kids today are having the greatest struggle with being alone, being together is loneliness because they haven’t been taught to socialize better, which sometimes means compromise and sometimes means boundaries, and so there is loneliness in all situations. There is disappointment in all situations, because intimacy doesn’t mean an end to loneliness!
Typically, the more intimacy the more emptiness a person feels, which leaves people chasing something that is ever fleeting. Not picking on anyone. I am guilty of chasing that which is better not sought.
Perhaps my concerns are projections of my own failure to connect with family and people to a greater degree. Maybe it’s wisdom hard earned.
It could be I am also minimizing how many people I have truly affected, for good or bad. I have here solid good evidence that if I spoke of a need, the people I work with would rally. My friends would rally.
I am truly blessed.
Every parent wishes their children would have an easier time of it. I would not want him to have to be alone, but in some ways, I may have given him that. He seems to be smarter than his peers, preferring the company of adults. Perhaps he's that smart. Perhaps reading to him from medical texts from the first week I had him home had an effect. Perhaps singing to him in quiet hours of the night, or sitting there in the car with him because the sound of the engine running was a better song to sleep to than dad! We had music together and told stories.
With the distance between us, we have had more airtime than in-person time. He has family from Thailand visiting, and so phone time is down this last month. I wonder if that’s actually healthier than us being on tech all the time. Still, grateful for tech and the time we have, even though sometimes I feel emotions.
Maybe tech time is better than no dad time.
I am so used to being alone that if he stopped calling, I would initially inquire if all is okay, as I don’t like disruptions to routine, but I would soon be doing my own thing. The fear is, I do that latter so easily that I might suddenly be facing a young man that I don’t know because I didn’t see the transition.
Together, we don’t see the transitions. Life evolves subtly. My dad was gone for a while and when he showed up, it took a moment before my brain updated the reality of him with the inner vision. That’s been all my life! He was in the Navy and for a moment every man in a Navy suit was my dad. Towards the end, every appearance he made was so different, it was like the entire last part of his life was just a music montage of a man shrinking, then gone. Death became something fearful because time was dramatically killing him, as opposed to the subtle creeping we all face, daily, minute by minute.
The failure of correct prioritizing?
So, I see my son almost daily, but it’s still jarring. Old photos of someone I used to know can also spur a song I don’t need in my head.
And that’s just it. I have never been alone. My head is more full of artifacts than a cat lady’s hoarder house. Wouldn’t that be a thing to visit on death?! Not just a life review of the good and bad interactions with others, but you have to sort and account for every idea and thing in your head!
You might have to sort out why you prioritized things over people or animals or trees. The only reason I haven’t adopted a new pet is I know I am way too busy to attend! I think I am the lesser for not having a pet, or more human contact.
But I am content in my boxes alone. Truck box. Bedroom box. Study box. Work box. Minecraft Box.
Fuck, my life review is going to take a moment if we have to unpack all those boxes! Not alone.
I have had the sun, the moon and stars, and beaches, and airplanes, and people I cared about remotely, and dream about, and just the day dreams themselves… If we count days dreams as past lives or other, simultaneous, multiverse lives…
If movies count as day dreams and alternate universes, well this life is full of things to unpack.
Just this one life is so full, it would take an eternity to explore the things, real and imagined, and the relationship to those things, and the relationship to the relationship of those things…
I have been alone in my head all my life. Even when I was with someone, I was still in my head, because I never learned to let the shields down sufficiently to relate and be present. I stopped being lonely when I learned I wasn’t alone in my head. Ironically, when I stopped being lonely, I had more connections in real life.
Have you realized you can’t reactionaly emote to anything unless all things are real?
