Loneliness

A re-post from Ala Paredes's blog: ala's dos. I have the same thoughts too, and I'm just mesmerized how she managed to brilliantly put her mind into words. ^^

Spent the day in the city today and the I feel that the heaviness hanging over me loosened its choke hold a little. It helped that I was with one of my dearest friends in the world who is always such a kind, loving, accepting presence, and who makes me laugh over silly things.
Being alone too often is not good for people who easily fall into melancholy like me. It has been my disposition since birth. I’ve learned to accept it as a quirk of my character and it’s something I don’t take too seriously. Moods come and go.
But things can get out of hand.
Everyday, I do my freelance work in my house alone. I wake up to a quiet house. I eat lunch alone. At 3 PM, I go for my coffee break alone. I cook and eat dinner alone listening to the ticking of the clock. On Sundays I go out for my special Sunday lunch, alone.
I’m awake 6 hours earlier than the only person I live with. By the time he wakes up, I’m either out doing afternoon errands, or he needs to rush to work. By the time he gets home I’m asleep.
The only human voices I actually hear are the telemarketers trying to sell me carpet shampoos or solar energy or whatever.
Thing with loneliness is that it’s easy to reverse its effects when ingested in small doses. Call your friend. Go on Facebook. Send a text message.
But in large doses, it can really grind away at you. Dark thoughts prey on you. Small fears become big, paralyzing fears. You nit-pick. You doubt yourself at every turn. You become disoriented. Your self confidence starts eroding away. It becomes pretty easy to feel that there is no human warmth in your life. Only Twitter and Facebook and all the other silly things we use to numb ourselves and feel like we’re all close even though we never have real conversations.
Dramatic much? It happens when you’re alone all the time, and are predisposed to melancholy.
I’ve become dull, and overly serious, and my sense of humor doesn’t come out to play very often. I don’t laugh very often. Joy comes only occasionally, and in a faint drizzle. What do you laugh about when you’re alone all the time? And when you do start laughing when you’re alone, it means you’ve finally gone crazy.
Not good for my mental health. Maybe the isolated life of a freelancer isn’t for me. Or maybe I’ve been carrying around big questions and now that I’m alone all the time, I can no longer ignore them.