On Loneliness

Or maybe just the repetition of old patterns.

I wasn’t expecting to be this wrapped up in loneliness, but I have been, for days now. I’ve never been very good at being kept at arms length by people that I care about, and I often react rather badly to it. I can wield the club of wounded feelings with a heavy hand, as some of you can no doubt attest, and I really am trying to break myself of it. It almost feels as if I shouldn’t even say such things in so public a place. However, I have said so many times, Blog, Write, without Fear. This is honestly what I am feeling, and the attempt to talk about it directly seems to have fallen on deaf ears. Writing about it may help, because I feel myself sliding into a legitimate funk, and I badly need to avoid that. There has been entirely too much slow acoustic music, sour books, and sappy movies (it’s summer for God’s sake, I need action flicks) these days, and I can feel my chemistry starting to churn in that ugly direction. I don’t like this feeling, and writing for me helps to stir my mental pot just a bit, and get it cooking the right way, hopefully.

I haven’t left the house for anything but work, or to do things by self, in three days. Boo fucking Hoo, right? Most people might be happy to be left well enough alone. But not me. The thing is, work isn’t a room full of happy people having a good time anymore, people interested in each other and in me, it isn’t a something I get to play host at any longer. It’s a place full of problem solving, which I like, but it’s often a place filled with the anger, frustration, apathy and simple stupidity of others (not my coworkers, they’re pretty cool) and it’s makes me ache for positive human contact more than ever.

I have wonderful friends, and I would do anything for them. I have turned my club of wounded feelings upon many of them, unjustifiably, many times, and they accept my apologies, when I work to repair the damage, in nearly every case. I lost one recently to the Big Apple, but I know he’ll be back and we’ll talk a lot while he’s there. I’ve been very slowly beginning to communicate with another beloved old friend again, and it lightens my step, it honestly does. I have a far away friendly voice that keeps my mind moving, and I adore it. My friends all have lives of their own, and it is not their responsibility to entertain me 24-7, I know it, but I miss them, sometimes even when I’m around them. The groups never seem large enough these days, and I feel alone sometimes, sticking out of the group lately like a sore thumb.

But more than that, I don’t have day to day contact with someone I care about, and I need that. I’m not one of those people who is constantly “with” someone, and I’ve spent more of my adult years single than coupled. I really don’t do well all alone, my over active mind wanders and wonders and fills in the blanks spaces with horrific images and frightening ideas of betrayal and loss that I know are utterly baseless. I can not force others to be part of my life, and many people need space, I understand.

I just hate this feeling of loneliness, and don’t know what to do about it. I suppose the only thing I can do is keep looking, keep calling out, keeping trying to tell people that I am here, that I care about and love them, and hope they listen.