ONLY THE LONELY
• Sara Towe
Life is a wonderful thing if you have people to share it with. Don’t put off today what needs to be done to day. Join something...

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Every one experiences some loneliness sometimes in their lives, but there are people who experience more than their fair share. The season to be jolly is a time where people feel their loneliness the most. Everyone is talking about this event and that dinner party, and there are some with nowhere to go. These are not homeless people, but your everyday people that you may work with or live next door to.

Loneliness is not just about a person being alone, but about feeling lonely within their lives. You may have many people among you, but you have this overwhelming feeling of detachment or loneliness. You are not a part of the clique, or you are perceived as being full of life and strong and people presume that you have a life and so therefore don’t need to include you in their activities. There is nothing worse than being lonely in a crowd, or being lonely in a marriage. You want to shout out that you don’t feel that you belong, but no one would understand or really care. People only want the life of the party around them, it is too much effort to bring someone out of their shell. That shy person who would love to be included, but does not feel adequate enough to interject into the conversation.

True friends that know you and can hear you are a rare thing nowadays. We are consumed with being popular with the crowd that to be true to your personality and show everyone who you really are is too scary for most people. No matter how popular you are, I believe that we all feel the loneliness at sometime or other. Do we always feel that we belong? Do we look around and say, “Yes, these are the people I want to be with”
Do we feel perfect strangers sometimes even if we are with friends?

For some work is their only point of contact with people, or maybe they volunteer to do things so as to be near people and to socialize. Church is to some a way of socializing more than it is a faith or a place where they feel they belong. Married people often volunteer at events because their married lives are so lonely. You can be sitting next to a spouse and feel utterly alone- many women I know go through this, I know only too well from my own experience.

Life is busy, I have friends, I am an organizer, I organize social events, I love to be near people, but, I am the one who does this, no one else does. “We can’t do it like you, so we don’t do it” this is what I hear. Yes I know, I need to get a more productive life, and I am trying too. Can anyone tell me how! Many are in this situation, bound to children, a loveless marriage and have no money. I am trying to start a business so as to earn money and hopefully gain more people to socialize with. I am a positive thinker, always pushing people to think positively for themselves and to believe in something. I am there for them all. But today I feel very very lonely, even in a crowd. I want to scream out “hear me I am here” I talk to people but sometimes feel this is just 'noise'. I am trapped in my own loneliness and I don’t necessarily know how to get out of it.

This is why so many of us are so lonely. We are trying to communicate with people around us, but no one is hearing us. We are just another thing in the room, another person to pass your woes onto, another person for you to dump your negativity on. Where is the light? The sound of uplifting voices? A valued conversation with someone who really cares a damn. Where are all the other lonely people?

Look to your right and then to your left, do you see them? Now look into your mirror, what does that tell you? Are you one of us? Or is your life full of meaningful content and valued friends? We live in a society that is detached from feeling (in case someone should hurt us) and from fear of trust being broken (in case someone should take advantage of us). I do believe that we need to get back to a village society, where everyone looks out for each other, and shares your joys and your woes.
Life is hard to live ion your own. We need to start stretching out our arms to others and take them into our embrace and let them know that they are not alone. I do not mean like an interfering community where every one gets in your business with judgment and malice, but a place where people will respect each other’s individuality and our privacy. We can be a community and respect each other’s lives, we can share and give each other strength, and we can let them know that they are not alone. We must start trusting in each other and be there for each other before the loneness spreads to all and gets out of proportion.

Start sharing your life with people that care and start being honest with yourself and others. Rather than stand alone, it is time to unite and to share our lives, to reach out and touch someone that makes them feel wanted and help them erase the loneliness from their lives.

Life is a wonderful thing if you have people to share it with. Don’t put off today what needs to be done today. Join something; voice your feeling to friends and co-workers. Let your family know how you feel, just don’t stand for loneliness; it is a very dark place to be. I am now going to let the light in somehow, I will trust in the energy of the world and find someone to share my life with that really does care. I will make it my mission to do so because I have seen enough darkness and I now need the light to go on. Help each other to find the switch.

Have a Very happy 2002. May it be filled with laughter and meaning.
Best wishes to you all

© Sara Towe 2002 Vancouver Canada.
email: positiveliving@telus.net

7.01.02 A READERS RESPONSE

In response to Sara’s article on loneliness. Yes, I think we all feel it, ‘lonely’, especially during the festive season and in those obligatory crowded situations such as, at a party. Whilst you’re looking around at the seemingly "normal" looking people, all enjoying themselves, I suggest that amongst them are one or two, or perhaps more, who feel the same isolation, perhaps they’re just better at hiding it? But then you’re there too, you probably chat to some friends / colleagues and they think you too are socially skilled and more importantly, not lonely. Ahhhh, the irony of it all, given your eloquence and confidence to express yourself, perhaps you yourself, have friends that would like to express similar such feelings but feel too embarrassed or ashamed to do so with such a ‘together’ friend?

You mention talking to people; friends, true friends if that concept still exists? But really, have you talked to anyone about you feel? (Apart from the millions that now have access to your deepest darkest secrets via this fantastic creative forum! Ha! Ha ha!!!) I have said it before and dammitt I’ll say it again… Venting these frustrations in a creative outlet, such as keeping a Bridget Jones – type diary, is all well and good, but I think in today’s time, its much harder to discuss these issues openly, in an open forum, such as this e-zine has offered you.

As such, perhaps one risks being belittled, ridiculed or mocked. But I salute your efforts and suggest that you contact your local high school, paper and / or radio station. For, I am sure that there are plenty of other people, (young teens especially), that share these isolated feelings.
Firstly though, I think it would be pertinent to look to find causes for these feelings. Then I think discuss these in a group situation, or a column in a paper or on your own radio show; discuss and share the possible forward-looking steps.

In your article, you end on a positive note, saying that you believe that something "out there" will urge you forward and hopefully pull you out of this deep blue funk. But still a word of warning, you have yet to discover where these lonely feelings / traumas stem from or began, and as such I would suggest you are far from overcoming them, even with faith!

But that is not to knock the efforts that you’re clearly making, you know that something has to change, you have things in your life, children, career all of which demand your attention and are causing you to organise, prioritise and ultimately, re-think your life. Who knows maybe the answer is "out there…"

I think that with a little 'encouragement' that you could make a fantastic guidance councillor for students, or as I mentioned before find other such places like this site to continue to express yourself, but I feel that you’d do well to find a common purpose with others to share these feelings, be this a group that you can join or one that perhaps you can start yourself?! Now there’s an idea!!!
Good luck with everything…
Anon
(Another lonely voice, somewhat less lonely today…)

You can visit Sara's new website right now - www.positiveliving.ca

Shedding of the winter skin.
Sara Towe escapes to the sun
So off we went, all aware of this last trip and that we do not spend a lot of time together as a family anymore.

STAR STRUCK
Sara Towe
Why is it the regular man does not quite measure up to our sexy screen stars?

In Memory of a Father

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