Spaced Out

12/23/2020

Is anyone else incredibly lonely? Before I go further, I know I am not the Nikola Tesla, or maybe better yet, Morrissey of loneliness, I’m truly just expressing something rolling around in my head for a long time. Not just lonely in the sense that coronavirus has everyone staying at home and maybe you haven’t gone out for a while. But in the sense that the disconnect seems never-ending and impassable. And not one of those “emo” nights were you feel sorry for yourself or bitten by bitter nostalgia but something bigger and permanent. I don’t intend to make it seem like I’m throwing a pity party, as much fun as those are, but I’ve really felt thoroughly alone for the good part of a couple years.

I am an only child and I’ve had a bit of underlying pride in being able to do my own thing going my own way, which I think has led to a self knowledge that is certainly valuable in it’s own right but definitely not mounting a high horse here. It seems, as well, that there is a pattern of getting older and having friends pair off and get married, have kids, reach for that brass ring of adulthood. This pattern would apply to me and I’m sure a lot of you. And so as not to paint a picture of some hermetic shut-in I communicate somewhat regularly with friends I’ve had for a while but even those relationships seem distant and fleeting. Something feels different right now and I think I’d be mistaken to blame it all on covid.

I’ve been dabbling in psychotherapy and its been fruitful in certain aspects, but as I’ve found out that is a long road to travel and epiphanies are rare. The usual rationalizations and “chin-up kid’s” that have worked for close to a decade are starting to lose effectiveness. I wonder if this is just a function of passing time, do humans just forever expand away from each other like bodies of the universe? There have been times when I was somewhat attracted to the concept of misanthropy, and I think all of us practice at least subtle misanthropic ideas expressed in one way or another, but that’s not it.

I don’t really know what the point of this post is other than an opportunity to ramble, emotionally mumble. I suppose its to literally ask “is anyone is in that same cloud with me right now?” I don’t know if I’ll get a literal answer but if I may, I can be that answer to you if you’re going though something similar. Maybe it’s like when you start a new job, school or move to a new city and you hope you find someone who also loves Third Eye Blind or Men at Work as much as you. Or that obscure reference to an old show you watched when you were little. Just that little jolt of I don’t know what, recognition? A need (in the most positive sense)fulfilled? A little mirror to show that you you’re there with someone, right now. I guess its the emotional or romantic equivalent of saying, “That’s what she said”, at the same time, when someone else says “things are getting harder these days”.