Feeling Alone

Sometimes it’s hard to feel the aloneness

I firmly believe that we need to feel all of our feelings. All of them. In order to live our fullest, most present life.

Sometimes, though, it’s hard to feel some of those feelings.

I woke up feeling so very alone this morning. 

It’s not that I don’t have dear friends and a social network. I do, albeit small. I don’t do large groups well. A small network of more intimate friends works better for me.

And sometimes, a feeling of such deep aloneness (which feels very different than loneliness for me) floods over me and overwhelms me.

Like it did this morning.

I feel the vastness of the world around me. The busy movement of life around me. Young people going to work. My young neighbors tending to their sweet families. My older neighbor (as in my age) and her children and grandchildren and all of their partners. 

I am alone. I have, for some reason, seemed to work to achieve this in my life. Growing up had some challenges for me, as it does for us all. I craved a sense of peace and tranquility and acceptance of myself. Closeness to others meant feeling judged as less than, as not good enough. 

I’ve been married, and am grateful for that experience and for the sweet man who was my husband. He remarried and went on to have two sons. We, when married, had decided to not have children. Interesting. I’m glad he found someone to share his life with that perhaps matches him better than I could. 

I have always been blessed with dear friends along this path of my life. Some of them are gone now. I miss them very much. Sobering, this death thing.

I now, being retired for almost three years, have time to devote to things that I love. Writing. Painting. Being in nature more. Maybe even a bit of travel to look forward to. I am grateful.

And yet there are times when I find it hard to get satisfaction. From anything. When that dreaded question What’s the point? comes up.

Although I have found that I can validate myself more these days, there are still those times. Times when I doubt everything. Times when I feel lost. Times when I feel frozen.

 Times when I deeply feel my place moving up in that line of waiting to die. 

Times of wondering what the rest of my path will be. What age related changes will keep coming? What do I have to show for this precious life that is winding down? What difference have I made to anyone? To the earth?

I don’t have any answers. Yet I keep moving and keep going on. This feeling is with me, often. 

I know that there are other feelings that are within me as well.

Feeling connected to the earth and its creatures. Sometimes in a way that is deeper than any connection to people. 

Feeling like I am finally letting my soul speak when I write, when I paint. Grateful to still be alive and have time to do those things.

Grateful for dear friends who can hear and share some of these feelings with me. We help each other feel a bit less alone for a few moments. 

Grateful to be able to volunteer at our local zoo with the elephants. They teach me about being in the moment. They bring me comfort and quiet some of the noise in my head.

Grateful for friends who are drawn to some of my paintings. Who see a piece of me in those canvases.

Grateful for readers who comment that some of my writing has touched them in some way. 

Grateful to still be alive and on this earth. Feeling the preciousness of each moment that I am still granted. 

Grateful for all the feelings. 

Grateful for life.