Flipping the script on loneliness:

or at least, starting to

Photo by Denys Nevozhai on Unsplash

“Loneliness is the poverty of self; solitude is the richness of self. – May Sarton

“I would rather write poems than prose, any day.” – Mary Oliver

May Sarton tell us that feeling alone doesn’t have to feel lonely. But telling myself to look inside for comfort does little to address the ache of the island drift.

My friends and I lately, our faces more lined than last year, the stories behind our stories harder to speak into understanding: All of us on our own little islands, shooting up distress flares in the dark. And the waters between us grow deeper; and the islands float on. Is this what it means to be 40?

I sit at my computer, eyes burning, and ask myself once again: Is there a way to let the ache take me some place new?  

It’s not just me. It’s all of us everywhere, lighting up the night sky and searching for fellows and sometimes coming up short.

No one can come with us where we are going eventually. And yet it is where all of us end up: part of the hard-packed ground I’ve been studying recently like a new friend.

May Sarton is right that life is an inside job. Other people were never meant to be the cure. Still, “richness of self” may be too much to expect. Instead, what if we expect the poverty to come sometimes and the drift to feel insurmountable sometimes?

We all lose ourselves, again and again, and then we lose each other too.

If I can find my way back to myself more quickly this time.

If I can learn something from the drift.

If I can touch my hands to the dirt under all our feet. 

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On last week’s note, for the fellow Olympics aficionados who reached out, I enjoyed this NYT article on importance of groundedness to Olympic success.