Loneliness isn’t an acceptable default setting for the human heart. At least not mine. It’s something that no one wants to talk about. The honesty and vulnerability of admitting it makes people uncomfortable. We rush to fix things for each other, to ease the discomfort, but some things can’t be fixed with words, or platitudes, or compliments, or empty but willful promises that things can and will change. There are no guarantees, so we shouldn’t offer them.
My heart has always wanted and sought connection. In as many places as it finds itself fulfilled and to as many people as it feels connected, the essence of true partnership has always evaded me. Even when I was married. And the emptiness has created this sort of ever-widening black hole; a gaping wound that won’t heal. In all the places I look, in all the faces I search, I’ve never found the eyes that reflect my soul back to me. And hope, well, hope seems the most bitter antidote.
You say I am strong. People tell me I am amazing. Some have said one-of-a-kind. One once said incredible. Yet, there are no prizes for greatness if it fails to yield what you desperately crave. Many days it just feels like a brokenness that will never repair. Like fractured bones that can’t be reset, so you learn to live with a slight nagging pain that occasionally overwhelms you and drops you to your knees. Yesterday was that day for me.
So, what do you do? Do you stop searching? Do you settle for less than you’re worth because it is better than being alone? Do you surrender? Do you sleep it off? Do you run? Do you dance? Do you cry?
No. You do the only thing you can do. You rise up. You lift your chin. You hold your lonely heart in your own trembling hands and you tell yourself, that in the end, this solution that feels fully imperfect and completely unfair might have to be enough. And maybe it will be. And maybe it won’t be. But there is no way to know. Not right now.
All you can know with certainty is that today is staring at you, holding its breath and waiting for you. Summoning you to show up and be brilliant. So you step out and bring your energy to the world and hope (if you dare) that some day in some way, the power you pour into the universe will return to you what you seek. Until then, you have to be enough for yourself. Because that is the only available default setting.