loneliness

In our home, whenever someone sits down to eat anything, someone else in the home sits down too, just to keep them company.

Not necessarily to make conversation, or eat something too, but just to be with them.

A long time ago, I worked with someone who came from Taiwan. We were talking about lunch, and he said, “People should not eat alone” – this was a deep and fervent part of his up-bringing.

I thrive being around people with imagination.

People who can see things that aren’t there yet and talk about them as if they are real right now. Like cars that fly, a practical end to hunger and healing sounds that work infinitely better than chemical drugs.

People who can create – pictures, music, dance, inventions.

People who can see the world in a better way.

Without these people, I feel lonely. Yes, my wife and children fill a kind of loneliness, for which I am very thankful.

I have found that I can be in a room full of people, and feel absolutely isolated and lonely. Perhaps this happens to you, too.

So, there is something more going on with loneliness than just needing to be around other humans.

Perhaps we are lonely for this, that, and the other.

When I take care of a garden, I feel that the flowers, vegetables, herbs, and all that grows out of the soil are my friends. So, I like visiting the Hartford Flower Show, the Bronx Gardens, and the Durham County Fair.

All the lonely people
Where do they all come from
Ah the Beatles not to date myself
I remember their debut singing on the Ed Sullivan show
They kind of shocked me with their performance
Funny I can still remember that
I can have so many memories both good and bad
My memories can have a direct effect on my emotions and actions.
If I am feeling lonely do I consider
being with myself can be an amazing thing if
I can find peace and joy in the stillness of being alone.
Even if it isn’t quiet can I be in the quiet

Two four year old girls in my nursery school class were the best of friends. When one entered the room, the other would run to give her a big, welcoming hug. They managed to sit side-by-side throughout all activities and held hands when they walked around the room.

These girls were bright, creative and mature beyond their years. Every so often, something of interest would happen at home and they would turn this idea into a little two girl play.

These plays delighted me so much I’d stop what I was supposed to be doing and watch (from afar, of course).

We live on a quiet street. Each house is surrounded by a wooded acre. Our only excitement is watching small wild animals frolic in our yards.

On the first Saturday in December all that changes. The Community Center holds “The Jingle Bell Run.” The first year of the run, about thirty people participated and they were probably the committee members.

This year hundreds participated.

On the morning of the event, everyone registers at the Community Center and gets a number and a necklace of bells.

One of the key things that retired people have to do to maintain a healthy lifestyle is staying busy. Watching TV all day, every day, is a recipe for decay and decline. This is something that working people sometimes have difficulty understanding - because they have to be busy every day, it can be hard to grasp how important it is to remain occupied when work does not fill the day.

Listening to my Higher Self, El, I finally heard perhaps the most important truth of all.

I pushed on in my conversation with my Higher Self, who I’m calling El, and asked, What is the gift of my aloneness?

And this time my answer came as a stream of questions.

Did the loss of your intimate relationship not force you to reclaim your projections and encounter many hidden aspects of yourself, in the process healing, by loving, all of your Being, and teaching you how to give unconditional love to others?

And did this not make you a better healer as well as a more peaceful human being?

Handicaps or disabilities can be things like poverty, a less than pleasing appearance, or a lack of freedom, support or community.

In my case, My Higher Self, El, revealed, my handicap, or disability, is the lack of several types of partnership that I have always fervently desired and am not currently enjoying in my life – the intimate kind; the sustained, soulful work/business variety; and the type that comes from a group of people working together, up close and persistently, on a cause that is dear to their hearts.