Loneliness is a Quiet Thing

Loneliness is a quiet thing. It sweeps across our inner landscape as an unbidden, unwelcomed breeze. Loneliness visits us not just when we are by ourselves, but even in a crowd. Being with others who seem not to see or know, or even care to know us, can be worse than being alone.

Loneliness is more a feeling than a state. It involves our emotional reaction to our aloneness. We can be alone and enjoy it; in fact, we have a need for time alone, time to be by ourselves without pressure, time to rest and regather strength and our sense of self.

We rarely feel merely lonely. There is usually an admixture of other emotions, which can be even more troublesome. Among those feelings:

Nostalgia: remembering what was, but is no more. Perhaps we yearn for love lost, the dearly departed, an era ended, our childhood closed, our children grown and gone. We want to bring back, reenter what was once but cannot be again.

Regret: regret over what we could or should have done but didn’t, or over what we did we should not have done. The “what ifs” plague us; mistakes and lost opportunities haunt us.

Fear: fear of both the known and the unknown, fear of being pushed beyond our capacity to cope, fear of the absence of support, fear of tomorrow being as empty as today.

Grief: unresolved, unprocessed grief over the loss of love and loved ones, of changes in our lives unwanted, unprepared for.

Despair: feeling that the best is behind us, the future bleak, undesirable yet something we must bear without a helpmate, friend or life partner.

If loneliness becomes more than an occasional episode, but a frequent ache in your daily life, how can you alleviate it? You need to name it, face it, and allow it to define itself. Don’t fear it, for it has its rightful place and reason for being there; and it will pass, as surely as night passes into morning. You are not alone in your loneliness; even prayer has been defined as the flight of the alone to the Alone.

Bring your loneliness into language, both spoken and written. Language can bring healing to the wounds of isolation and estrangement. Talk, write letters, journal to yourself. Your private pilgrimage, your thoughts and feelings matter: you should chronicle them for your own sake, as a way of loving and being good to yourself.

You don’t have to be alone. Nor need you be lonely. These are your choices, the result of your attitude and action. You may through death or divorce lose the presence of a loved one; such a condition is beyond your control. And you cannot fill a space in your heart which once belonged to another; rather, you have to grow a new space to accommodate a new love. You can do that. If you can do it for a pet, you can also do it for a person!

Do some deeds of loving; be there for another maybe even needier than yourself. When you enter into the loneliness of another, your loneliness completely disappears, even if only for a time. The reciprocal sharing of loneliness has the power to cancel it out.