The Reality of Being Alone

"Who knows what true loneliness is - not the conventional word but the naked terror? To the lonely themselves it wears a mask. The most miserable outcast hugs some memory or some illusion." Joseph Conrad

People say loneliness is a state of mind, to some extent it is, but oftentimes it is difficult to ignore the quiet and slow torment that eats you up inside. If it were easy to shrug it off, I would take that route. But even if I fill myself with so many activities, at the end of the day, it is right beside me in bed.

This is not about being married or being part of a unit. This is not about being a mom or being a sister. This is about being so used to hiding inside myself that I thought I was better off being alone. Hard as I try to reach out, there is always something that stops me. Shame? Maybe. Guilt? Could be. All I know is that this is my reality. There are but a handful who know the inner depths of me. A very chosen few. It is nothing more than self preservation.

I belong to a loud, boisterous family. Does not matter. There has always been a part of me that held back. There will always be a part of me that will hold back. Too many things that happened in my childhood just wired me this way. I am forty years old and it is pointless to point a finger and blame someone for this. In an ideal world, I would have moved on and used this to spur me and become stronger. I think I have moved on but be stronger? I am not certain. 

There are certain truths that make me go on. The knowledge that I am loved. The truth that I am wanted. Those are the truths that keep me moving forward. I am desperately working to make this reality a past. It is part of this new journey that I undertake. Life is too short to be scared of the dark, too short to allow a quiet torment eat me up alive. 

I am forty and I want to live.