Sunday, 26/8/07
I'm going to start by saying that, while I try to convince myself of the psychotherapeutic technique which confirms all feeling and emotion as legitimate, the feelings i've been having lately have not been. I just can't look myself in the mirror and say, you have a right to feel this way. I really do not. Thats when I hear my dad's voice go, 'where is your smile?' for it is symbolic of his innate attitude, that, no matter what we have going on, life is good. Life was good and will be.
Anyway, what i'm trying to say is that i've realized lately that a state of loneliness has come upon me. why? i'm not unhappy, by far, i've been given the best situation I can possibly imagine. Not only the circumstances in which i've been placed as a senior in college and young girl of very modest upbringing. But, whats more, even the little details of these circumstances leave me with no room to complain. You see, I live with a lady of great servitude. Widowed, but blessed with many children and grandchildren, she is known to love and share. I've partaken of these virtues at her table and in her home. She loves Africa and has many stories to tell about it, her home for over 20 years, which encourage my desire to venture there possibly for work. She is a seamstress of fashion clothing and also an amazing cook, willing to share her time. Evidently, she lacks no quality i can think of that would pleasure me more in sharing her company, unless she has some secret professional dance experience closeted away somewhere (or maybe a grandson who does). I live with her on the ninth floor of an apartment building, with balcony access from my bedroom overlooking a swan-filled lake, and with a perfect view of the sunset nightly. But, for some reason my coeur trop petit forces me to forget all this and instead dwell on the fact that i am in fact separated from family and friends and therefore have no one with whom i am loved unconditionally. And i think that is why i have trouble sleeping. It's ridiculous, actually.
I've been mulling over all this, because i do feel pathetic about the whole thing, and i've decided that it must be human nature to desire people, and not things or places. Clearly, i am not at peace because i am separated from those i love. And yet, i do not burn to be with them. i like solidarity. but i guess i just love it as an alibi, when i get tired of family and friends. but its their constant presence i miss. Its true. And so, me and Tom Petty are crying together now as i think of them so far away, and how much they've given me. And so i guess its not that lame. i cry for love. "this is gonna be hard," even if i wouldn't change my situation and make it easier. surely there is growth in being apart, as well as adventure. Ive been through it for the past 4 years and i think i will my entire life. I am destined to be an ex-pat, a misfit, because i do believe that may be my calling. And so I'm learning that it doesn't really matter where you go, but that you must cherish it and the people that you'll meet there. And so i will spend quality time with Maman Viviane, as well as the people in the marche, and those at my internship who work relentlessly for human rights. I love how all this sounds so cliche, not to mention obvious, but its a completely different experience to feel it. Loneliness is a state of mind, right? But still it is a challenge until we realize we are not really lonely. We may be alone, but we're never lonely if we have trust in God, and hope that we can share love again. Maybe it isn't important who those people are, but that we commit this act. For if those we love now were to disappear, we would find new ones. Again, how trite it all reads on the page. Anyway, I enjoy being needy for love because that perpetuates my need for God to fill it, and I am then conscious of my humanity. At home, it seems I often am too distracted by those i love.
Just some things i've been sorting through. Again, i recognize how much greater my circumstances are than last month, which honestly was the epitome of loneliness, of complete isolation. It was the bottom of the barrel, but it was where I learned to do without, to look up, because what i think i need and what i really do are not on the same list, but will make us miserable if we let them. But its all gravy, baby, in the end! I am so glad I went through that to see how great sitting at home watching 24 with my family can be. makes for a stellar evening. good wholesome fun, patterson style!
As an afterthought, I realize how startling it is an experience to actually feel what many people feel all the time. And for that especially i am grateful. I now know how it feels to think yourself lonely. People go through this all the time! And so it must be a lesson to not run over them in our daily quests. Maybe its a little macabre, but we should possibly assume that anyone we meet could be experiencing the worst day of their lives. Could we treat them anyway other than altruistically?
Good night, loved ones.
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