Do I Get Lonely

Someone sent me a message on Facebook the other night:

There are a couple of things I want to share...

First off, the fact that anyone looks up to me makes me smile because it's flattering but frightening.  Talk about the blind leading the blind...Lord have mercy.

Second, let me throw some cliche' statements out there.  We all get lonely.  I think the funniest people are often some of the loneliest...but you wouldn't know it because we are working so hard to make sure OTHER people don't feel alone.  I also think that being an empath amplifies loneliness.  Empaths absorb so much of other's energy that we are often left "holding" so many feelings and emotions...becoming a keeper of all of it in order to save others from it...that we end up feeling isolated in what we can share.

But of course I get lonely.  Nights are the hardest for me.  I am a morning person.  Annoyingly so...I am up and singing and hollering greetings by 5:00 am.  People ask me, "How can you be SO fucking happy at 5 in the morning?"  Because I am usually full of hope.  My optimism is at level 100 bc "anything is possible" and I believe that today can be the day that something happens.

Well, by the time the evening rolls around I am feeling less than hopeful. I have usually resigned myself to the idea that the Universe hates me and I am going to die alone...well not ALONE ALONE bc surely I will be surrounded by a multitude of furry animals and waterfowl...but alone meaning I will be sans another human that loves me. 

So I try to delay this impeding evening pity party by staying in motion.  If I am not working out I am mowing the yard. If I am not mowing the yard I am vacuuming, cleaning, redecorating, talking to the ducks, pressure washing, dusting...you get the idea.  But eventually I have to stop the motion...and that is when it's really easy to slip into the dark place.

And I am lonely.

And my FB friend had a valid point.  People makes it seem like if you really love yourself than you should be okay with just being by yourself.

I DO love myself.  But I am a firm believer that the majority of us homo sapiens WANT and NEED a witness to our lives...someone to share ourselves with.  AND LORD YES I CAN HEAR YOU NOW...I have a million friends.  I clearly share my life and all of the random oddities that make it my life...pretty frequently with people who want to know...and also with people who DON'T want to know...

But that's different than having someone to crawl into bed with at night that knows how you like to be held.  It's different than having that person you can come home to and just lean in to....and you don't have to speak they just know you in that silence.  My friends are precious but they don't give me butterflies when they touch me.  There are so many little things...

AND LORD YES I CAN HEAR YOU NOW...I know that I COULD fill my bed at night if I wanted.  I could probably call up a few sweet idiots that like me and "go on a date"... but the truth is...I would rather be with no body than just be with some body for the sake of filling that void.

I often think of the irony of my loneliness.  Not to toot my own horn (there is a lot of "self-tooting" when you are alone but that's another topic all together), but people tell me a lot "everyone loves you".  Do they?  Maybe a lot of people love me...but yet...

I dunno.

The entire point of this post is...if you feel lonely...you aren't alone. See what I did there? Even funny, outgoing, social calendar full Amy, gets lonely.  Sometimes, and this may sound rather tragic, but sometimes when I am especially heavy hearted and crying into my pillow...I actually hold my own damn hand. I am not even aware I am doing it until I realize I am.  I don't know if that's sad or there is some poetic meaning to it.  But it helps a little.  And sometimes I tell myself..."okay...feel it (whatever I am feeling at the time)...live in this pain or saddness or grief for this moment...but you can't stay here.  When you wake up in the morning you will choose to believe again."

And when the alarm goes off at 4:00 am...I give it my best shot.

That's all we can do right.

So chin up buttercups.

xoxo