Loneliness

Loneliness is a liar.

Loneliness will cause you to read too deeply into things, overlook other things, and sabotage both.

Loneliness will tell you that you aren’t deserving of companionship that feels good and true, or new experiences that replenish and broaden, or familiar experiences that do the same.

Loneliness will bargain with you, convincing you to settle in situations that don’t serve you. The tradeoff? A willful recipient of breadcrumbing.

Loneliness will force you to choose between the person you know yourself to be freely and naturally and the person you must be to achieve and possess—because who you are already isn’t good enough.

Loneliness will have you reading old text threads and combing through your neuro file cabinets for old memories, swearing that if only you hadn’t said this or did that, you’d still have this or still be there. (Which is the exact thing that happened to inspire this post.)

Loneliness will keep you silent, scared, and stagnant because it rivals truth and opposes freedom.

Sitting with this reminded me of a text exchange between two friends of mine a little while ago:

I’m not actually dating anyone right now, but I want to, and I’m scared lol

I’m curious: how did you decide to stop dating and focus on healing those areas you were speaking about? Like did it feel like the only option? Was it something you were encouraged to do?

I actually decided to *start* dating. Before that I was on these apps literally saying everything from “I’m not interested in anything serious” to “I’m looking for partnership and if I don’t find it here I’m still open to what’s possible.” Which screams: do not take me seriously

“Because I also don’t take myself seriously”

So the work I did was to *truly* decide I wanted to be with someone and then to not get hoodwinked by loneliness. Men are gonna be men, and people are gonna be people but it was loneliness that let men lie to me.

Though this particular text exchange centers on dating, it serves as a frequent reminder to assess how my own loneliness has lied to me in different areas of my life. I’ll spare you the details.

The thing is, energy doesn’t lie, and most of the time, people don’t either (not for long, at least). As cliche as that may seem, it’s the truth. People, places, and things tell us exactly who and what they are all the time. Loneliness turns a blind eye. Loneliness plugs our ears. Loneliness creates loopholes.

Loneliness is a sly motherfucker, and it lies to us and lets us lie to ourselves.

Loneliness isn’t a bad thing. Loneliness isn’t something we need to overcome, either. Loneliness just is. And since, for the most part, loneliness is more of an emotional or psychological state than a physical manifestation (see: alone), I think we make room to coexist. I think we open the door when it visits without allowing it to convince us of things that aren’t true and influence us to behave in ways that aren’t aligned with the life we envision for ourselves.