OK(?) Alone

This is where the yoga and the meditation and the hobbies come in. I work out my energy, clear my mind, and fill my time. If there’s no time to sit alone with my thoughts, then there’s no time for the loneliness to take hold.

I’ve gotten pret-tay, pretty good at being alone, and now the problem is being around other people. I have mixed feelings about other people.

I have many acquaintances, and I value them highly, but I can have those conversations in my sleep. I’ve had the same introductory, “So what do you do? Who are you? If you could have any super power, what super power would you want?” talk an estimated 1,000,000 times. I can recite my resume of qualities that hopefully make people like me without paying any attention at all. In Las Vegas, the people in my life with whom I’ve made it past the first ten hours of conversation can be counted on one hand.

It makes me lonelier - talking over and over and over and never saying anything new. I never feel a real connection, and I skim the surface of myself and others – never anything important. When I reach the point where my pocket conversations have all been used, every favorite story told, then I feel the panic set in. Now it’s actually me they’re going to see, not the smoke and mirrors, not the polished final product, and am I ready for that level of exposure? Just a little more time alone. Just a little more time to heal. And then I can accept the risk of caring for others and having them care for me.

In my room, in the coffee shop, it’s me and my thoughts and the silence and occasionally an ice cream truck drives by. There’s no chance of embarrassing myself, there’s no chance of offending my friends, and there’s no chance of rejection. It’s nice.

Forgive Me 12-31-11 by Oscar Young

I know who I am when I’m alone. I am the OM. I am presently Leah. That’s what I am, and people complicate that by trying to make me a part of their story. I’m not their story. I’m only my story and every story. I dislike being observed, but I love observing.

Sometimes, people compliment me. This is very nice, and it makes me happy to hear nice things said. But, sometimes, they compliment me too much. They seem too excited about me, and I get nervous. I’m not whatever they’re saying I am. I’m a girl who stares at her computer alone in her room, and I’m doing okay. I could be doing better, and I sure as hell could be doing worse. Never accept compliment or critique a great friend, who I’ll likely never see again, said once. If you accept one, then you must accept the other, and both disturb me equally, although in different ways.

Everyone is as lonely as everyone else, right? We’re all alone together. All of us live with the illusion of separateness. I think this is true… but I know some people’s minds are quieter. Some people’s minds don’t follow them down the rabbit hole, never to be satiated when unanswered “Whys” still remain.

Is this nicer? The quietness? Those of us like me, those of us whose inner worlds vibrate and dance and seldom settle, we comfort ourselves by saying that although our lows may be lower, our highs are also higher! Our ability to experience this world is greater and therefore the bad and good are equally blessed. How dynamic is my world! So many facets shimmer and break apart. This is comforting in the bad times, because how lucky I am to feel so profoundly. Don’t others wish to be as alive?

No. I doubt that they do.

:)