My aloneness twists in on itself, coiling and compounding, when I forget to look for myself everywhere. In the grass and the sky, in the perked up ears of the unafraid deer, and in the eyes of the guy telling me about the yellow throated birds that have been about lately. In the broken twigs on the path that remind me how connected I truly am, because I see my loneliness in the way they’ve fallen on the ground in some forgettable shape, in a forgettable spot. Having lived and grown, swirling, dancing, and dying.
Every early morning getting up to get my own tea, shuffling to the tea pot I wonder why? What had I done? What had I not done? What mistakes had left me here alone? Even if I’ve learned to love the quiet and peace, I think I learned to believe I deserved it; Isolation, aloneness. Maybe in that damn box at 21 I got a message: You don’t belong to anyone.
I know I didn’t choose to be alone to begin with, and I don’t know who chose it for me. Too many to count, I suppose. I don’t even remember the day the choice became my own. But some days, if there was one thing I could wish away, it would be this.
Today I practice finding connection by looking for myself within everything. Perhaps tomorrow I will wake to see all the love there is in this life, letting the teapot sing to me in the early morning. It’s a practice. How tenuous it seems. But, breathing can bring it back. There is just the day, only the day ahead. There is framing to do, and the blue and pink paint to wash off my hands later, and all the love I can find hiding within this aloneness I see when I forget to look for others within me. As David Whyte spoke, “Your great mistake is to act the drama as if you were alone.”