Once upon a time, not that
long ago, I feared the corrosive effects of being alone. I didn’t really have a
life of my own, and so I wanted to avoid the empty, hollow times when I was
forced by unavoidable circumstance to experience loneliness. I know from
experience how this season, the holiday season around Christmas and New Years,
is fraught with images of family and connection. It is a time when loneliness,
the feeling of being without, or beyond, meaningful connection is particularly
hard. So, I feel compelled to write, at this time, to affirm what I have
learned, the precious opportunity that loneliness presents, and the genuine
hardship that comes along with it.
I spent some Christmases alone.
Notice, I’m referring to more than one. I’ve had a chance to drink deep of the
bitter seasonal ale, the one that ferments in one’s lonely heart.
I will be spending this New
Years alone. The feel of this time coming, contrasts so sharply with those days
of the past. I was alone then in a painful heartbreaking way, now my aloneness
blankets me with comfort, love, and support. I want to write about the
difference, to remind myself of what once was, and to make sure I’m clear about
how I made the change. My well-being relies upon staying clear about how a
lame, broken and fearful man was converted into a sparkling and energetic
mystery.
Aloneness was always a sign
of my inferiority, of my inadequacy. I don’t know why. I could speculate about
it. I’m sure I could come up with some compelling theories now, but then, it
just felt like something must be wrong with me. I know I suffered a kind of
dread about being alone. Loneliness came, despite me. I’ve gone from quaking
before the possibility, to seeking it. Transitioning from one kind of
experience, and one kind of attitude, to another, has been a great gift I gave
myself. This gift has rebounded to others as well. How this happened, I want
embossed in my soul, and available to others, because something quite miraculous
lies deep within the alchemy of this change.
I learned to love myself.
That would not have happened so clearly for me if I hadn’t been alone.
Loneliness became solitude, because no one else was around to distract me. I
sat in my own juices, some might say, “my own shit,” until I started to feel
some compassion for what I was doing. The loneliness turned, it became
something else, something friendlier and more supportive, because I had to face
myself. I not only came to terms with me, but I began to hold my life as
on-going miracle. Solitude began, when I realized that I, despite my fear and
distaste, was always present. Solitude became something I hadn’t expected.
There was someone in the silence, someone who heard my complaining soul,
someone who stayed with me, and someone who eventually calmed me down.
I didn’t take to being
loved, especially by me. I kept thinking, “it was a dirty job,’’ that “someone
had to do it.” I wanted someone else to have to do it (this was no favor). But,
no one else was around. Loneliness, the absence of anyone else, brought me to
my self. Now, thanks to that
unwelcomed development, I know that I never leave my side. I am now never truly
alone. I have reluctantly become self-possessed. I am accompanied now, never
alone, happy to have time with the one who stands inside me, even when I am
quivering. I am now full in a way I was never before, and it is because I
couldn’t run away from me.
Loneliness became solitude,
and solitude became desirable when I discovered that inside myself lives a
being making my life a desirable mystery. I want to know, and be, this man, as
much as possible. Solitude has become an everyday thing. It is my way of
staying true to the one within me. My new world of social relations is enriched
by the presence of this one. I am alive as never before.
Solitude has become an inner
love affair. I want to spend time with myself. I don’t have much fear of a time
of looking at my life, evaluating whether I made good use of it, because now I
have the only real compass that was ever granted to me. I am, in part, what I
am created to be. I chuckle now, remembering how much I wanted to hide from
myself, how much I feared being who I was, I am happy now, as an ageing man,
because ripeness is setting in, and it all came through being alone. Loneliness
became solitude. I became myself. The world opened. The miraculous became more
evident.
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