The one about loneliness

and about where I have been for the last couple weeks

I am struggling and doubting and struggling a little more. I am finding it hard to push through the belief that I am capable of anything. The more I think it, the more it feels true. Everything I am putting out feels heavy and incapable of flight. It feels on fire before the flag is waved. And I have said for years, lay yourself out honest, stretching like runway, and the right planes will land on the miles of you, but honestly, I feel more alone than ever, and I don’t think it’s about the eleven thousand miles between me and my homeland or even about people or bodies or arms or any of the usual suspects you might line up. It is strange how these struggles we face are put under one term, how depression is depression even though there is an obvious spectrum. Loneliness suffers the same. Saying you are lonely is a vague way of describing how you feel, and I believe there should be more words for the different shades of lonely. Right now, I do not know how to reach into myself, tear out of my suffering, and put it on display, which is funny because this is often the demand of a poet.

I speak of my loneliness as if it is certain, but it is a monster in the fog right now. I know it only as silhouette. This feeling feels like loneliness but bears no certainty. It could be a similar unnamed beast. There is this feeling of needing the company of ourselves, and right now, I do not feel like I am here. It is odd the strangers we can become to our shadows and how we lose who we are in the mazes of our minds. It is fascinating how we can feel like observers of our bodies. Watchers from the outside. The one thing I know for sure is that the human condition knows no bounds. There are people out there right now, potentially reading this, feeling something so alien it almost strips the entirety of their human away. Yet there is also this huge possibility that somebody is feeling that exact thing somewhere in the world. This is to say that however you feel, the chances are, that you are not alone in your feeling. Lonely is taking what you feel and convincing yourself that nobody has ever felt this way and never will, and it is telling yourself that nobody will understand what you are going through. It is being unable to articulate your thoughts. However, remember this. The people close to you might not be able to comprehend your emotions, but that doesn’t mean you should silence your agony. There is relief in hearing the pain outside of your head. Those around you do not need to understand the weight you are carrying; they just need to respect that it’s heavy. Solution is often a shared carrying, and it sounds a little too obvious to say that in order to aid your loneliness, it requires sharing, but sometimes obvious things need to be said. More often than not, it is the obvious things that are least obvious.

I know it is odd to be missing myself when I am right here, and to put that out into the world and put it on display as an admittance without any deeper explanation is scary, honestly. For how hollow loneliness feels, it doesn’t half bear an impressive weight. And by impressive, I clearly mean terrifying. This newsletter, the one you are reading right now, is a feat. It is an overcoming of me feeling useless and unable to put anything out into the world that holds worth. I do not know how messy these thoughts are falling out, and I do not know if I have said exactly what I wanted to say, but this is my journey to finding myself and along the honest road, putting out a hand, offering arms and hopefully helping people. If there is one positive to our struggling, it is the other people we can help through our honesty. Whatever you are feeling right now, you will get through it, much like I will get through what I am feeling, but we do not need to do it alone, and we most definitely do not need to do it silently.

How’s there smoke coming out of the chimney if it’s vacant? It’s haunted!!