:-/

Loneliness should be a feeling, not your day-to-day companion.


We wake up everyday, trying to make sense of the world. Scientists try to make sense of..uh, science. Parents try to make sense of their growing teenagers. Teenagers trying to make sense of growing up (others of sex). Pre-adolescents trying to make sense of puberty. Old couples trying to make sense of marriage, and maybe even of divorce. Students making sense of their homeworks. Widows making sense of death. Dying patients making sense of life. Basically, people just trying to get by making sense of the world, their world, this world.


Since childhood, loneliess has been my feeling & my companion. It goes away, just like most feelings do. And then steps in to be my companion, when companions go away, just like most do.


Are we lonely because people left us alone? Or maybe because we choose to be alone?


There are a lot of sides to loneliness. But there are at least two that we should be aware of. I've given it a lot of thought. Nobody really wants to be alone. Because just the fact that we think we are lonely, that we feel lonely, that we simply acknowledge that the word lonely applies to us...means that we are. We are lonely because something is missing. Maybe because something we've grown used to is no longer there, we are missing something. Or maybe it's because we're lacking something. We're lonely because we're searching for this thing that we're lacking.


No, we really can't say that we choose to be alone because we want to. Nobody does. There's a significant amount of different to solitude and isolation.


Solitude is our "me-time", a time that we are alone with ourselves and our thoughts. But not necessarily lonely with ourselves and our thoughts. It could be enlightening and even empowering. They're different, okay? Even though if you check the dictionary, they're synonymous to each other. (LOL.)


So, we isolate ourselves. We choose to be alone. Isolation. Not solitude. Definitely.. There is no solitude in isolation. But why do we choose to be lonely? Maybe because over the years we've reached out to people, and we didn't get the response we wanted. Or maybe we didn't get any response at all. Maybe because we've been hurt so much. That's an ironic thought. Loneliness is a product of pain, while in itself it causes pain as well.


It becomes our defense mechanism. We build a wall around ourselves, keep our shields up. "Never mind that we are lonely, just as long as we don't get hurt." Take a little pain, to avoid more pain. There it is. That's the thought that keeps us going. It's our fortress, our shield. But i'm sure we've all heard it from somewhere... that wall you've built around you is not keeping other people out, it's keeping you in.


I've been there. And maybe to a certain degree, I still am. I used to say that maybe this is what i'm meant to be. Isolated. Numb as the heart bleeds empty. It all started out with being lonely. And I got so used to it that I eventually forgot that I was lonely. Lonely is me. There was no use in labelling it, because as far as I was concerned. Where there is "Trish", there was lonely. There was this one quote that had this line..The last letters of lonesome is "ME". Yeah, that had me written all over it.


I'm no expert. But I do know one thing. Actually, a lot of things. at that. I know that our God is a good god. I know that we shouldn't have to be spending most of our time figuring things out. But instead just trust in Him that he will make it good for us. He will make good out of the certain things that happened.


And if that...sadly, doesn't work for people. I also know this to be true. I know it's better to cry. I know it's better to miss some things. I know it's better to feel. It's good to know that we have tears to shed, and that we have things to miss. Because through this we acknowledge that there is something better. We know that there is something beautiful, that there is good. We are lonely because of the better things we clamor for. And that's better than not knowing if there is good left in this world.


Even if it's painful, I know it's better to have someone. It always is.