Loneliness is space for connection

It is also a story we tell ourselves about our ability to connect

Imagine it is your birthday, and you have a gigantic family and many friends and they are all staying with you, and as glorious as it is, you cannot escape the chatter and the constant pull for your attention. You wake up early, and shut the bathroom door and pour a bath, and bask in the quiet.

Imagine it is your birthday. You wake up once more to the desolate reality of a quiet planet where somehow you are the only one who has survived. You go into the bathroom, pour a bath, and contemplate your fate.

Being alone and being lonely are not the same thing.

Loneliness is the pain of disconnection.
Intimate pain and social pain are different and both valid.
I have been nourished by intimate relationships, and deeply lonely because I had no friends. I have had a social calendar stretching the limit of the number of quality friendships I could maintain, and felt lonely because I had no one to hold during a thunderstorm.

It is hard to really, viscerally remember hunger when you are full.
You may not feel understood by people who are saturated with connection.
Loneliness is one of the most painful and universal of human emotions. For pete’s sake, just don’t make it 1000% worse by feeling like you shouldn’t be feeling it.

Loneliness is space for connection.
In a way it is a liminal space — a hotel lobby, an elevator, a street crossing, a bridge
It’s not a backroom. Don’t waste calories trying to convince yourself that you will be lost forever.
Enjoy the space as you are passing through it. It will make your next destination sweeter. And I guarantee you will pass through it again, so you might as well try to appreciate its aching, fragile beauty.