Loneliness

I don't really remember when it hit me. It wasn't loud at first, it was more like background noise that became louder over time. I'd give anything for that silence to go away.

I would spend days reflecting to myself trying to convince myself that life comes in waves, has its highs and lows. In order for those happy days to really mean something you need to move through unhappy times too. After all without unhappiness, how could we ever truly understand happiness?

There's a big difference between understanding and living through something. After a while it starts to feel like something that isn't temporary like a storm and just starts to feel like the normal weather, just the way things are. I often wonder do the happy days ever return or am I just telling myself that to get through the day.

As I go through the motions of my daily life I continually try my best to find the next distraction, but eventually they run out and the emotions will have to be faced head on. It feels less like living and more like simply existing. It’s such a hollow feeling.

I remember spending an entire weekend once without plans, no one texting to check in. I thought about reaching out to someone, but it felt so exhausting. I didn't even have the energy to be perceived by another person. I wasn't sad, but numb.

I've thought about how I ended up like this, and if I'm being honest I have no fucking idea when I lost touch with everything. It was probably a gradual shift as I was just trying my very best to make it through the day ticking off the check boxes for whatever needed to be done that day. I had forgotten what it was like to really want to do things, to be passionate about something.

Somewhere in the midst of all the numbness, I had a moment of clarity, I had forgotten who I am and I was desperate to remember. I don't know what triggered it, but that moment of clarity didn't feel like an epiphany. It wasn't an overwhelming flood of emotions, but rather something quietly shifted inside of me. There was a small ember lighting the dark numbness. I didn't know what to do with it then or how to act on it, but I knew I had to do something about it.

I wasn't looking for some grand act of change. Those are never the solution, rather I wanted to reconnect with my inner child. Who was I before the world told me who I needed to be? Obviously its not easy to just jump back into everything the way it used to be. I'm not the same person and neither is the world around me.

So, its better to just start simple. I picked up things I used to enjoy. I started playing my ukulele and singing. I started skateboarding. To be quite honest, I wasn't enjoying them at first. It felt very forced like you're a baby trying to put the square peg in the round hole. My fingers felt stiff trying to play each note. Skateboarding felt awkward as my body had forgotten the rhythm it once moved with. I don't know why, but I persisted. The music doesn't sound great, nor do I glide as smoothly on the skateboard as before but thats okay. Everything slowly got more natural as time went on. I felt myself reconnecting with a part that I once thought was lost forever. Its definitely not about trying to be the person I used to be before either. I am simply letting myself be.

Its a slow process, and I am still in the middle of it. But the energy has shifted. The silence hasn’t completely gone, but most days, it’s no longer overwhelming.

There’s this line from a Tyler, The Creator song that’s been stuck in my head lately. "They say the loudest in the room is weak That's what they assume, but I disagree I say the loudest in the room Is prolly the loneliest one in the room"

Those lines stuck with me as I used to be the kind of person that was afraid to talk to stranger, terrified of saying the wrong thing or being perceived as awkward. But lately, I've been forcing myself to speak anyway, even if the outcome is uncomfortable or even disappointing. Because as painful as it is to stumble socially, I've realized it hurts so much more to sit in silence wondering what could've happened if I had just said something.