Loneliness in Short

Definition of lonely

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1a :being without company :lone 

  • too many lonely nights at home

b :cut off from others :solitary

  • the train stopped frequently at lonely little stations
  •  —Robert Hichens

2:not frequented by human beings :desolate 

  • lonely spot in the woods

3:sad from being alone :lonesome 

  • He was feeling lonely without his wife and children.

4:producing a feeling of bleakness or desolation

  • it’s a lonely thing to be a champion
  •  —G. B. Shaw

Merriam Webster

It’s a shadow to your steps, so easy to appear, so difficult to dissipate.  I find myself staring blankly at the wall or a screen and just feeling lost and incomplete.  It’s not only a desire to speak to someone, it’s the desire to speak to someone in particular.

I’ve had a few friends who have been in close contact with me recently, yet, over the last few days, that communication has simply ceased.  This isn’t from a fight or any drama–at least, not between the people involved.  It simply is.

My mental health has been shaky over the last week, so I’ve been the one to disappear from the computer.  Compounding that has been the loneliness.  The desire to speak to these particular people and just not being able to do so.

Who are you missing today?  Together, let’s reach out to those we love, even with a simple message of I care and I’m thinking of you.  Thank you, dear traveller, for existing, for choosing to continue to exist.  You are a part of why the world is so wonderful.

Discovering Blindness

As a child of divorce, I remember the fighting and tension rampant throughout the household.  I remember a father who seemed absent.  I remember my mother’s distance and unhappiness.  I remember being lonely, feeling different from everyone else.  I remember acting the clown.  I remember the day I hugged my mother tightly and was told, “You give the best hugs.”

To this day, I hug with my whole being.

There are many factors I neither knew nor understood as a child.  My father’s anger and frustration, for instance, was not directed at me for being different from him and also similar to my mother in many ways.  He did not disapprove of who I was.  He was hurting, deeply so, and scared for me.  My mother’s distance wasn’t because I wasn’t worth loving, it was the pain and confusion of discovering a new facet of who she could be.

They say that hindsight is 20/20, yet there are times that it’s often more than the inability to see all of the details: it’s the inability to see anything at all.  We are inherently blind to the world around us until something, an event, person, situation, forces our eyes to open.

To what might you be blind to, dear traveller?  Are there circumstances that you may not understand or see?  Is there a reason that you react in a certain–perhaps extreme–way to a situation that may not warrant it?  Clear eyes, to you and to me, throughout this week.  I pray that we begin to see, at least dimly, some new aspect of the world around us.