Loneliness And Too Much Heart

Loneliness And Too Much Heart

   Do you know what it's like to feel lonely? I don't mean that feeling of, "I'm lonely. Let me call/text my friends." I mean true, ongoing loneliness, unrelieved by seeing others. Some would call it depression. Others would call it emo. Sometimes even "needy." Neediness can be mended. Loneliness can too. But it takes work. Not just work from the lonely person but from others, too. 

   I watched OA recently, and it reminded me of one of the worst things a lonely person can see in their lives: true friendship. Deep, unrestrained friendship, free of awkwardness and pettiness. The kind of friendship where 5 strangers, a few of them who despise each other, come together and learn to love each other as only true friends can. And it's painful for lonely people, because a lonely person has come to a situation where they know it will never happen for them.

   Lonely people are not lonely because people are good and kind to them. Lonely people are born out of a cruel society and a feeling of never fitting in. They may be considered psychos or drama queens. Now, I'm not saying such people are untrue. There are many psychotic people and many drama queens who deserve the title. But there are many who don't, too,

   I grew up as a lonely, unloved girl in society. I've never fit in. The people I liked always despised me, even some of the other misfits. I never belonged with any group, and yet I refused to give up loving people. I was the perfect case for a psychopath shooting up a school. But hate was never really in my coding. I just wanted to be loved and accepted. I had one friend at any given time, and I'd always lose that 1 friend at some point when they'd get some petty anger at me that they couldn't find it in themselves to forgive and forget. I never wanted to hurt anyone. I just wanted love and acceptance.

   I made it through college, and I was struggling. I tried to make friends but I didn't have kids, I didn't love boys and makeup, and I was too down-to-earth for most people. I found friendship with some local homeless youths. Little did I know, I was going to need to rely on them someday.

   Many years later, I learned how to be lonely with my family. I had to live with my parents again to try to find a way to stay off the streets. I was an embarrassment, she'd say. I was too loud, too lazy, too sarcastic, too cruel. And again, I was only wanting love and acceptance... and survival. I almost returned to the streets many times. I was more lonely then, than I'd ever been.

   Time went by, and I managed to stand on my own, supported by the job my parents handed to me. They'd made many friends through their customers, but when they left, many of those people refused my business, because I was not their friend. I was never cruel or harsh, but I simply wasn't good enough. I lost more than half my customers for no other reason than the fact that I was not my mother.

   The job eventually failed, and money ran out. I met a sweet guy, the one I'm with now. We made a life together. I was part of the pagan community. Yet that didn't fix my loneliness. When I tried to talk to those in the pagan group we'd be part of, they'd shun me and move elsewhere. When I tried to do rituals, people would talk to me about not doing my best. I had a terrible, aching loneliness, and anger for their judgments and their attitudes toward me. After all, I was only seeking love and acceptance.

   I eventually moved on to a new pagan group, who were more welcoming and comforting. But when I began to struggle to come see them and do the things they did, suddenly I was ignored by most of them and no one wanted to help. Three birthdays went by, and only one friend attended each.... not the same friend at all three. 

   My life has been a long road of feeling lonely and imperfect. People try to claim that I have all these friends and that everyone is here for me. But that doesn't cure the loneliness. There's one thing to have friends on Facebook, but for all of the connection we all have online, how much are we spending time face to face, holding hands or giving hugs, or really seeing each other. And for those who do, why is it so hard to take time away from your hundred friends with their hundred friends to sometimes visit the one friend who has almost nobody?

   See what people just can't allow themselves to accept is that some people are lonely because they are so often alone. And that they are surrounded in life by people who are never alone, even for a few moments. Lonely people don't want that many friends, but lonely people want a few. A small group of very open, very loving, very dedicated friends is all we need. We don't want sympathy friends, but we do want some people to give us a chance to show what a great friend we can be. 

   Lonely people are often less desired because they want it so much more than the others. And yet that backwards logic is unintentionally expressed by millions of people around the world. There will always be the popular people and there will always be the lonely people. Because I feel that others will never really allow themselves to feel so much that they truly understand each other, deep down. 

                                                                ~~~~~( <3 )~~~~~

So I ask you one last time... do you know what it means to be truly lonely? I do. I have my whole life.

Memories of the Imperfect:

Story 1: Humbled and Rehumbled:

   I lived a hard life, full of struggle and lack of gain. Most of the time I don't like talking about my past because then people pity me. I hate pity, Pity feels a whole lot like being worthless. Today's memory is about my parents, and living with them for the last time. This is the time in my life that broke my family off from me. 

   I was so hungry. But I had spent years trying to survive. And I was starting to go through periods of weakness. I'd lost nearly all concern for my life. But I was never one to give up. I finally let go of my pride and called my mother, and asked to come home. She was so much more than ok with it. She sent me a ticket for me and my current partner. I was so tired I slept nearly the whole way out to her place. I remember seeing trees and green grass for miles, and I cried, because I'd been in Arizona for so long, and I'd missed the pretty green things. It was good to be home.

   And it really was, for a few months. Living with my mom and step-dad, my boyfriend and I were fighting constantly, but I was told that's healthy in a relationship. So I did my best for us to get along. The first setback was when my mom told me that he would need to sleep on the couch because she was tired of hearing us doing what couples always do. She forgot the fact that we had to hear them too, but it was their house, and we didn't intend to stay longer than we had to. I was sleeping on a mattress on the floor in the entryway, after all. Then it started to become about them constantly being suspicious that we were using the shower for our love-making (which we were definitely not, but they refused to fully believe that.)

   So we finally found a happy medium again, but it wasn't meant to be. My mom and I came home one day from our daily walk and found my boyfriend packed and standing by the door, waiting for his ride. This was the second setback. I was shocked. Sure, we fought a lot, but it wasn't as bad as some couples. Mom and I were not even fighting anymore. But he refused to say much at all, and his rid came, and he left. I was devastated. What's worse, he ended up stealing many things, the most expensive of which was my first tarot deck, which was given to me by a friend back in Arizona. He also stole many other things, dryer sheets, toilet paper, weird things to steal. 

  The third setback was when my mom tried to talk to me about keeping her up with my crying. I guess it was ok for me to have a broken heart, as long as I didn't wake anyone up with it. This was the beginning of me feeling very isolated and lonely in my parents' home, and the start of a downhill slide in our relationship.Then conversations about shower lovemaking were replaced with suspicions about shower masturbation. Which, again I wasn't doing... which again they didn't believe. The repetitive behavior they were showing in not believing things I told them was swiftly building a distrust I'd had of them, making it feel as if my words didn't mean anything to them.

  At this point, we will skip along the daily life of a woman and her parents, and past the time where we moved into a new house. I missed the old house from the moment we'd left it. It was beautiful and surrounded by woods and had a yard to tend and a garden. My parents had lost their 2 dogs to old age, and they were growing more unhappy all the time. But they were polite, and they let e share the running of the  house with them, and I had a computer, and could watch TV, etc. 

   After some time, my parents became less comfortable with me in their home. Daily conversations often included asking when I'd get a job, as if I could predict the date. It wasn't for lack of trying, I just wasn't having any luck. After I started getting some interviews again, those conversations turned into how my mother will use my income to help pay rent and bills, which would leave me very little to live on, but my mother insisted it was to "Pay my stay" basically. I would always respond how I'd never be able to move out if I didn't have the ability to save money, and then it would blow up into a huge fight. She wanted all my money for her rent and vills, and I wanted to live on my own again.

   At this point, I'd been slowly transitioned by my parents to doing all of the house chores or face the passive-aggressive wrath of my parents, pretending I wanted to be lazy and useless all the time. Sometimes those were the exact words I'd use. Nevermind that my step-dad would leave his coke cans around, attracting ants, if I didn't find the can soon enough, or the fact that they would clutter up their space with all manner of unorganized junk and then occasionally tell me to dust (which included me organizing their junk FOR them.) Let's also not mention the fact that they couldn't even rinse a single dish so that I had to scrub a dish for up to 10 minutes sometimes (no exaggeration.) And let's finally not mention the fact that house chores never took a sick day, because if I was feeling too tired or unwell (I had a frequent bout of insomnia), I would have to face the dreaded passive-aggressive attack again. 

   So I was cleaning the house every day, while looking for a job, while trying to stay out of my parents' way (generally in my room alone was best) to avoid irritating them, still at this point not realizing that something had broken with the relationship. I constantly had to turn music up loud on my headphones to drown out their love-making, because it was their house and if I even hinted at how it made me feel awkward, my mother would start avoiding speaking to, or interacting with, me as much as possible til I'd retract my statement, causing a mini fight every time. 

  And again, I did my best with my surroundings. Even when my parents started taking away TV time, and unplugging my computer at times to try to encourage me to do even more job hunting (as if that even helped), I really, really tried to make it work. At that point, though, it was clear something was broken. My step-dad starting being more overt about his racism and bigotry, as well as his beginning to assert dominance over me, trying to mute me with intimidation whenever I argued against my mother's constant criticism. 

  Yet further along my stay with the,. I was angry and frustrated that I was still trapped in that house with my neurotic mother, and bigoted step-dad. They fought all the time now, mostly about a game they often played.Apparently my step-dad was a bit of a flirt. However, I was stuck in the middle. We couldn't leave the house without a fight anymore, or my mother claiming that I embarrass her in public, and she always said the fights were my fault. She started criticizing everything I did, and every way I'd speak, and I couldn't go two minutes without her finding fault in me. I still tried to please her. I still tried to make peace... at least until the day my step-dad charged at my bedroom. I was scared half to death. I thought he was going to kill me. And it had nothing to do with him and everything to do with my mother and me. My mother made him stop while I screamed curses and threats at him, threats that I would leave and call the police and send him to jail forever if he touched me.

   He started backing down after that day, and I thought I'd see peace again. But again, that was just an illusion. Shortly after, it became a fight for control over my life. I did as they asked or they would threaten to kick me out. I'd finally had a job, but all my money went into covering needs I couldn't get before. There was no money for her, or for my own home. I can't recall how many times I almost went back to the streets. My step-dad was bitter and evil. He'd lost some of his sight, and his idleness was making him horrible and cruel. 

   Life continued this way for quite some time. Eventually, I'd met someone at work who invited me out to trivia sometimes, then shortly after, I'd met my boyfriend. Life became tolerable again. And all the time my parents would threaten to use the gun they had to kill themselves whenever anyone fought, I was never that way. I never, in all of my despair, felt the need to end my life. Sometimes I think that was good, because my boyfriend is a godsend. Sometimes I wonder how good it really was, because here I am, no job, no car, no future. I feel like I've achieved almost nothing in my life.

Daily Struggle

Daily Struggle of a White Woman

I am a bird in a cage. I now have food, and water, and a perch on which to sleep, but I am still just a small, caged life, crying for freedom but knowing that though the door is open, I am fighting not to fly away because I know if I do, I will be flying back to my struggle and my emptiness. Though it seems emptiness is all I have, even now. I am surviving but that survival doesn't bring me any peace, because I am still unhappy, wrapped in emptiness and longing and a need to be MORE!

I was not born to simply exist. So why have the gods decided that my life should be wrapped up only in its own existence, without meaning or purpose or use to anyone. I play all day, which might be perfect for some but I am RESTLESS in my own EMPTINESS!

I know that I bring us all down and we struggle, but try as hard as I might, no one, NO ONE cares that I want to make us better than I do. No one can seem to come out of their lives to see my pain and emptiness and constant solitude to see what a waste my life truly is.

I think sometimes maybe it would be better for all who know me if I was hit by a car or killed by some random madman hellbent on killing women, because that is often what madmen do. But I'm not ready to die. I haven't done anything. I have a useless life. I've done nothing but fight to live my entire life and I am ANGRY! EVERY DAY!

I see these people in their actual houses and actual cars that THEY DRIVE. I wonder why can't I have a house and a car? I see these people with their silly, happy children, and their perfect relationships which I know are never really perfect but they are so open about their perfection that my heart breaks. And I am ANGRY! And also really sad.

I don't even know my daughter's age anymore. I wish people would never ask if I have a child, because it would be nicer to forget her, now that I'm not allowed to watch her grow up, knowing she is happy but that I have been punished with isolation despite keeping my promise to stay ANONYMOUS!

I see friends at events and festivals and more, and it's so very nice to see them, but I feel like  years pass sometimes between seeing people I like and care about. No one just comes to see me because they like my company. No one comes to see me because I'm their friend. WHY AM I EVEN HERE?

People don't understand my anger and my frustration because everyone has SOMETHING! They also cannot comprehend my intense myriad of daily emotions, always feeling everything, always seeing everything, yet if I speak on my feelings, people feel like I am being out of control, because how dare I even express the anger and constant frustration of being train stopped on a rusty track and never seeing hope of continuing on in my life, for the REST OF MY LIFE. 

I am what they call "privileged" because I am white. What they forget is I'm a woman. Sexism is a thing. What they forget is I'm poor. Power can make people very judgey of the poor. Poor people can't go out as often. Poor people can't buy presents as often. Poor people can't join conversations of shopping for that... "OMG did you SEE the latest thing Janet put up on her store?" Or "I smudge every week. The place I shop is SOOO cheap." No, darling it's not. It's cheap for people with money, not for people who have to choose to eat less healthy for budgeting. For people who eat the same meal type for sometimes two weeks just to stretch out resources. For those people there's no such thing as cheap.

I know many people will see this as a rant, or seeking attention, but for me, I have no way of letting out my incessant anger and frustration. And I just want to tell everyone how unhappy I am, but no one wants to listen. It makes them sad, and we just can't have other people feeling sad. I am very blunt, and to be honest, people rarely give me a reason to care if anyone LIKES what I SAY because its not like you were LISTENING to me ANYWAY.