As I sat at my kitchen table, laptop humming and warm underneath my hands and fingers lightly tapping the keys without making any definitive decision as to which letter to press first, I discovered speaking about loneliness and my loneliness eluded me. Yet it was there, churning and contracting and constricting inside of me like a deep muscular knot. And will still be there after I have clicked the publish button. My loneliness shying away from the limelight reminded me of an Emily Dickinson poem:
The Loneliness One dare not sound --
And would as soon surmise
As in its Grave go plumbing
To ascertain the size --
The Loneliness whose worst alarm
Is lest itself should see --
And perish from before itself
For just a scrutiny --
The Horror not to be surveyed --
But skirted in the Dark --
With Consciousness suspended --
And Being under Lock --
I fear me this -- is Loneliness --
The Maker of the soul
Its Caverns and its Corridors
Illuminate -- or seal --
I've discovered that loneliness does not want to be known or spoken about. It wants to remain secret and unspoken, simmering just under the surface of my skin. I've also discovered that loneliness is a really good seamstress. It weaves within my tapestry the lies that I am alone. That I am the only one who feels this way. That no one will understand me. That no one will love me with the loneliness I feel. That everyone will leave me if I'm not who they want me to be.
That doesn't mean I am never happy or don't feel joy. Also being single doesn't automatically mean you are carrying loneliness. I have been in good, healthy relationships and still felt lonely. I have been surrounded by people and still felt lonely. I think that's another one of loneliness's threads - it makes us believe it looks a certain way, distracting us from what's really behind the curtain.
The only way I have figured out to combat my loneliness is to speak about it. But it's hard. It is hard to say that you are lonely if you are a woman. Because sometimes it happens that as soon as you've gathered up the strength and courage to address your enigmatic house guest and as soon as the words stumble across the threshold of your lips, people will want to fix it. Like a tear in the kitchen wall paper. They will scramble to get their glue and patches and quickly put the wall paper back were it belongs, glowing with pride at their accomplishments, all the while forgetting that I was the one who peeled back the paper to begin with. Forgetting I wanted them to look beyond the paper into the structure of my home. For they can't fix it. It is not one persons whole responsibility to sweep in and Deus Ex Machina. I wanted them to see it, see me, and still love me.
It's also hard because we have raised our daughters and women so well to care for the needs of others, placing their family and partners first that they don't know how to speak their needs. As much as women are needed, we don't want them to have needs or to reversely need others. We want to be strong, not needy. We drown ourselves in tending to the needs of others, in needing to be needed, without having to have needs ourselves. So not only do we not know exactly how to ask for our needs but we also feel extremely guilty and selfish.
And if I am going to be completely honest, I think another reason it's hard (at least for me) can be summed up in the beginning line of anther Emily Dickinson poem:
It might be lonelier
Without the Loneliness --
I'm so accustomed to my Fate --
I don't know if that sentiment is me or the loneliness or both. I'm not exactly sure whose threads are whose in my tapestry, and maybe part of me is afraid of what I will look like without it since it has been so long - I'm not sure what I would look like. Or who would still love me.
And yet, even now, even in light of the loneliness I have confessed, I want to be done with this burden. And all lonely people are asking you to do is see us. And if you feel extra kind, to reach out a hand, gently feel the rough and jagged edges of where we tore away the wall paper and lovingly call it a beautiful broken and let it remain.
Then someday we will show you a new room.
