postscript

I have no idea what it means to be lonely.

Am I being honest? Or am I just thinking something I wish were true?

It seems a simple concept. State of being. A need (a wanting?) of something that cannot be readily met or someone that isn’t there who used to be.

I have conversations with friends sometimes about what loneliness feels like to them. A lot of them respond in the same way. Some say they’re lonely for something specific. Others say they’re lonely for anything. They’ll say “I hate being single.” Or “I really wish I was with someone.”

Me? The thought doesn’t seem to cross my mind. At all. If it happens, neat. If not, I don’t feel upset or sad about it. Does it mean I’m just independent? Or does it mean I’m closed off? Both?

Is missing something or someone the same as loneliness? Or are they just connected?

Oftentimes, when I think about these types of feelings, I wonder whether I grew up poorly and detached from certain human emotions.

Its easy for me to feel some. I feel love often (whether it be for someone, something, an idea, etc). I can feel anger easily (not necessarily often). I can feel need. Jealousy. Happiness. Crazy. But when I think about loneliness, I don’t think I know how that should feel. Did this come from growing up with my father? A man so disconnected from people and the complete range of human emotions, it should be criminal.

Instead of saying “I love you” at the end of our conversations, he says “lots of love”.

Now that I think of it, I cannot remember a time where he’s ever said “I love you.” At least, not to me.

When someone isn’t near me that I wish was, I feel I miss them. Am I lonely for them? How is that defined? What does it include?

I find that the closest thing I feel close to loneliness might be when I haven’t spent enough time with myself. I get so caught up in a working mode, whether it be projects for school, developing my side projects for my own business, or my actual day job, it is incredibly easy for me to forget I’m a person. It was such a problem that I had to set alerts on my computer’s calendar to go off ever few hours to remind myself to take a break. Before that? I could work for two days straight and get completely lost as to what day it was. Its then that I realize “shit, I need to spend some me-time otherwise I’ll start acting like that other girl I used to be years ago.”

Crazy.

So, what does it feel like to be lonely? Is it better that I don’t feel that? Or is it a bad thing that I might be missing a human emotion that so many others around me seem to be feeling?