how do you describe an experience that is both mysterious and intuitive..? how do you put into words a knowing that you understand at a deep level yet doubt at a superficial one..?
identifying emotional experiences is often confusing.. because it requires a pause that i am not always willing to engage with.
oftentimes, i see it in my behavior before i feel it consciously. i recognize that i’m eating faster. wanting to share less. struggling to do things i typically enjoy.
i feel a heaviness that’s sunken in over the past few hours, the weight of loneliness not easily ameliorated.
my craving is specific — to be seen, to be felt in the way that only a close friend can fulfill.
and in that lacking, i feel exhausted energetically. and sad. it is not a sorrowful sadness, but one more akin to hopelessness. the opposite of feeling energized by life.
the desire for a distraction is an obvious one when feeling so down. and yet, when i feel like this, i have this intuitive understanding that the attempt to distract would only aggravate the experience. this is one that demands to be felt.
i don’t know what to do with this loneliness, what to make of it.. it’s both familiar and uncomfortable. it is tragic in its truth. it feels like one of the most honest human experiences.. this unmet need to be felt.
i remember writing about loneliness a while back and a friend pointing out a line that stuck with him. i asked,
how many people just on my block are experiencing this same thing right now?
which brings me to a point made in the Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed — it’s our suffering that connects us. this brings to mind a similar point made by Buddhists — engagement with our personal suffering helps us develop compassion for others’ suffering.
with that awareness, i still don’t know what to do with this loneliness beyond experience it. which, on second thought, is probably all i’m being called to do. but my american perpetual self-improvement brain wants to identify the problem in order to remedy it. wants to make this somehow my fault.
what an american inclination — to see a typical human experience as the product of a personal shortcoming..
…
i haven’t been writing much recently, and i feel conflicted over this. i can’t tell if i actually miss it or if my ego feels attached to consistency in the name of validity — e.g. i can only be a writer if i write every day/week/month/whatever.
…
i miss my people. the ones who make me feel like me.
this getting older is hard.. but to be fair, the being young was hard too.. i think i’ve always found life to be hard, at least as long as i can remember.. i can’t tell if this is a blessing, this sensitivity. all the while knowing it is both my power and my kryptonite..
i carry the weight of my humanity, along with that of others’. i am a capricorn, i am a goat. i am here for the long, grinding haul. putting one step in front of the other, keeping going.
i don’t know if i’ll ever make it to the top. and i guess that’s not the point. what is the point? best answer i have in this moment is presence, to experience it all.. to allow my humanity to be free to express itself..
i don’t know if i’ll ever stop associate feeling bad as being bad.. as doing something wrong.. tbd. lol
love y’all
much love, and good luck on the start to your week
❤
becki's a practicing human 