Solitude…

What if you weren’t meant to be with others? I mean, we are social animals, but what if you, as a social animal, was just not meant for public consumption?

I feel this more and more with each passing day. I feel like I do not WANT to be alone, but the longer I live, the more being around other people just makes me sad and depressed and feeling completely and totally alone.

I know I am isolating. I know that I should probably be concerned. But after a life time of trying to connect and feel connected, I just feel more disconnected than ever. More exhausted by every interpersonal exchange. More as each day passes.

And also there is this great desire to not be alone. But that is fading. Rapidly.

I feel like I do not fit in the world anymore. I do not like the new age. I long for a time when it seemed like people mattered to each other more. I know that such a time never really existed, it is euphoric recall meant to make me feel like there was a time that was better, a time that wasn’t now, that was more supportive and healing and wonderful, but every time has its demons…always.

Sometimes I wonder if I am losing it. Completely coming unwound. I know I have been wound too tightly for years. So this unwinding feels like it is happening without my permission or consent. I feel untethered and I also feel like I do not want to put forth the effort to reconnect.

I am reading like a book a week. I spend hours of my day and evening reading. One after another. Mostly fiction now, but also non-fiction. I write. I read. I walk. I lay for hours in the backyard letting the sun warm my heart as it feels so cold lately.

How can one long for connection and want to be left alone at the very same time? These things are incongruent. What I really want is just one person, a partner. That is all. I just want a person to love and be loved by. Someone to share the comings and goings in life. But I seem destined to fail at that…my ability to connect seems to only be with other avoidant people who seem equally horrible at intimacy. And that just makes me feel more alone and sad.

There are days when I feel like I am losing my mind, and then there are days when I feel like I might just finally be finding it. I feel like I am coming into my own, but at the same time, I feel this level of frustration and discontentedness with most of humanity. I almost body checked an older woman at Trader Joe’s last week because she was blocking the blueberries. I mean, all of them. She was bent over opening every single strawberry container to make sure she was getting a good one. And in so doing, blocked me and anyone else who wanted blueberries. It felt like a long time. It was actually probably less than a minute.

And so I stood there behind her, waiting for her to notice that she was in my way (she never did) and I was overwhelmed with the following…

I hate people

I hate waiting

What the fuck is she doing?

Why is she completely unaware of the people around her?

Why can’t I be completely unaware of the people around me?

What is going on with her?

Why is she so obsessed with the fucking strawberries?

I wonder if she lives alone?

I wonder is she is scared?

I wonder if she is in pain?

I wonder if I could help her?

So I waited until she selected just the right tub of strawberries. My irritation with her timing and blocking of my forward progress, fleeting but still palatable. Why didn’t I care more about this person, this living, breathing person whose life was right there in front of me? Because I had things to do and I wanted her out of my way. And that is honestly how I feel about a great number of people today. I have things to do and I want them out of my way.

The most peaceful times I ever have are when I am alone. Walking the dogs in the evening. Sitting outside in the backyard gathering sun instead of money. Hoarding the sun’s warmth as if it can reach in and heat up my increasingly cold interior.

I want to want to be around people. I want to do normal things but feel completely unable. I just feel so incredibly lost to myself. I think this would be easier if I had some peace about my isolation. If I could find some acceptance for myself and wherever the fuck I am today. I guess I do not understand it…I have spent my entire life attempting to connect with people and here I am just not really being able to handle it anymore. I don’t know who I am and I do not know how to be. I feel lost to myself, to you and that feels super scary for some reason.

I guess I cannot feel at ease in the social world anymore. I am often bored, not really interested in what most people want to talk about. Social engagements leave me feeling completely exhausted and broken down. I think every social interaction lately leaves me with this feeling like I should be happier, I should be more engaged, I should like this more and all while knowing that for whatever reason, I just don’t.

I know I need other people. I know that I cannot be all alone all the time. I know that other people need me too. And I do not want to alienate everyone, but I seem kind of hellbent on doing that. I don’t call. I don’t make plans. And when I do, I spend a great deal of time trying to get out of it.

I feel like I am in this limbo — caught between a world where I am alone and happy. Kind of like where I was with drinking, where I could control OR enjoy my drinking; I could not have both. Now I can either be alone or happy. Which feels like an awful thing really. So I go through the motions, but I am mostly not really there.

I am also losing my ability to filter things. And maybe that is a good thing. I have had too great a filter for a long time. A very long time. I hold back and never say how I feel, how your actions hurt me or piss me off. I just internalize and process it to a point where it doesn’t hurt anymore, or perhaps more apt, I just don’t care anymore. And then we move on in relationship, you never really knowing the level of my discontentedness.

I don’t know if in solitude there is peace…I just know that it is only in solitude where I seem to find any peace in this world. The more time I spend with people, the more I want to be alone. And I hate this. I want to be different, but here I am.

So I read. I work. I walk. I go to the gym. And I spend most of my days alone which still feels like an indictment of my own unworthiness. I feel flat, and lost and struggling a good deal of the time. But I also feel affirmed, resolute and on a path, that while I can’t say it feels all that comfortable, it does feel right and true.

I am not sure if there is a resolution for me. Perhaps this is just my magnum opus — my purpose in this life is to find peace in the solitariness of living. To stop trying to solve the problem of one that I have had such a hard time with all my life and find acceptance for it instead. Stop trying to solve the isolation I feel and just accept it, learn to live with it and find a way to enjoy it.

And I think I am, but that feels somewhat awful also. Like the more peace I find in the space between me and others, the more feral and out of touch I feel, which is perhaps as it should be…but it is not making me all that pleasant to be around. I find my disposition to be bitchy, irritable and very impatient. Like everyone I am forced to interact with is asking too much from me and I am put out all the time.

Today I am getting on several planes to go to the East Coast and I am kind of afraid for other people. My mood not great since I got up at 1:30 am to fly early and then learned that my flight was cancelled and the only way I can now make it to the East Coast today is by a circus like flying event that is likely not really going to get me where I need to be but is my only option. And going tomorrow doesn’t serve me at all since I need to be there and be present for all of tomorrow’s agenda. It is going to be a long day. And it is not how I want to spend my time, at all. But it is the task at hand so I am endeavoring to do it with the best attitude I can. I did not yell at the lady at American Airlines who was trying (not very nicely) to help me rebook my flights. So I am counting that as success this morning.

I know I am starting off the day hard. I am already tired and put out. And so that is not helpful to feeling connected and happy. But I am working with what I have and am going to do my best not behave like an asshole today. I will let you know, or maybe if I fail, you will hear about it on the news…”woman loses her shit on an American Airlines flight today…” Check the headlines, it could happen.

But it won’t. Why? Because I am a master at being alone in a crowd. I take my solitude with me wherever I go these days. It is like some sort of cloak I wear…

Well, it is looking like I am not going to make the trip after all. My flight was just delayed again and now there is no way for me to make it to the East Coast today. Not out of Santa Barbara, not out of Los Angeles. So, what do I do now?

Well, for now, I relish in the quietness of the morning. The peace I feel in the absence of other humans. And I will make an attempt for this just to be ok with me. How I am the way I am. Why I feel all the things I do. I am just going to try to find some acceptance for all that I do not understand about you, about me and about this whole living thing…

Again.

Still.