As the world begins to go back to their pre-pandemic positions on most of the topics at hand, I took a moment to reflect upon my personal feelings on loneliness and what it means to me to be alone.
There are a million things worse than being alone. One of the things that I know is worse than being alone is being with someone who makes you feel like you’re all alone.
I enjoy my solitude these days. I don’t need to be with someone who makes me feel like I don’t have anyone anyway. If I’m going to spend my time with nobody to talk to, nobody to turn to, and with my only company being my dogs, I don’t need any of the hassles that go along with being with someone. I know what it feels like to have someone who makes me feel like conversations with me are bothersome, that my input isn’t valued, and that my company is a nuisance.
I heard people saying they would be so happy to have someone to talk to again, and I remembered how it felt to realize that my presence mattered no more than the lamp on the table in the corner. That no matter the topic of conversation, I had no worthy contributions. I remember how badly it hurt to know that, in matters of what I had to say on the matter, the outcome would be as if I had not spoken at all.
My thoughts went to the times I wanted nothing more than someone to acknowledge me standing there, but I had no more substance than the other mundane items they had shelved in a far back bedroom. I was somewhere beside a bowling trophy and long faded photo in a weathered frame, my newness having faded from too many afternoons in the unprotected glare.
I am making no plans to be here or go there. I am simply doing what I wished for what seemed like an eternity; I am spending time with a woman that matters to me, one with more to lend to a conversation than the location of a lost set of keys. I am remembering the reasons I told myself that alone was so much better than lonely, and the promise that I made myself back then.
I am alone. I am no longer so terribly lonely because I’m not with a horrible person who makes me feel that way. I will not fear being the woman drifting through this house like some sort of spector, some voice that echoes a little when I answer myself in this otherwise empty room. It is nowhere near the loneliness I felt when I thought I was with him.