Lately I have seen a lot of writing on loneliness. The struggle of not having a partner or a person to share things with can be debilitating. No matter how much I love myself, I feel unfulfilled when I don’t have someone to share thoughts, experiences, adventures with. Build memories with.
How many of my best memories were made alone?
Now I have a partner. They fulfill me. They are attentive to my needs. They listen to the words that I say and read the pages and pages that I write. They watch for my patterns that sometimes I don’t even recognize, and adjust accordingly to keep us on track.
What more could one ask for?
But still, at times, my mind tells me that I’m lonely.
It’s not a voice telling me that I’m alone. It’s when my own gravitational pull turns into a push. Like the tides, I am the water pulling away… asking why the sand is dry.
I can share this loneliness now. And I can know that it can pass.
But it still comes at times. I think it always will come. Is loneliness part of being human?
Boredom has become popular. Maybe not mainstream (yet) but the importance of boredom is being appreciated more and more in an attention economy. Creativity, ingenuity, invention, and connections are squeezed from the painful aches and discomfort of boredom. Perhaps loneliness is the same.
It’s romantic to say that you will work through things.
That no matter what we will be okay.
That we are willing to put in the work.
The pain that comes from working out is a satisfying ache. Sometimes it’s pushed to a strained muscle. Sometimes it’s a real pain.
When it comes to the work that’s required to get through the hard times of a relationship it brings doubt. It brings loathing. It brings frustration and uncertainty.
Is this right?
Is loneliness part of being human?
Does it mean things are functioning properly?
Does it mean I know what company feels like? What it feels like to be paired. To be heard.
I know when I’m understood now.
The whispers telling me otherwise are liars.
We call it work when it hurts.
We say it takes effort when the thorn in our side draws blood for the first time.
When the pain in my heart is purely of my own choice and actions.
Maybe that’s what love is. Love not fleeting, but love breathed and appreciated for it’s presence, through the doubt of self and others that comes with it.
Appreciating the rhythm of the tides. The smell of the water before it rushes to splash me again.
Thank you for saying, “You’re worth it,” to me