Isolation

What do you do if you wake up one morning in full-on existential angst? What do you do if you wake up overwhelmed with a feeling of wanting to never see anyone you know ever again? What if you suddenly look back on all you have done with derision?

And what if all this angst robs you of your energy and you are flat? What if, when you go to the store, you respond with no expression? What if you don’t answer the phone when friends call or answer emails when they write because you have only dark worrisome things to say?

What do you do?

That can happen to me and when it does, I get dressed fast and get to Stanley Park as fast as I can. The park is my church. The last time this happened, it took a few hours to find my equilibrium. Luckily it was sunny because sunlight helps. For me it is God’s love.

When I got home, I realized that had I a partner, my partner would have said on rising: “What’s the matter? What’s wrong?” And we would have wound up talking and I would have felt better in a matter of minutes, I suspect, instead of hours.

Or I could wake my partner were it urgent. Or had I a family, I could call a sister, maybe, or cousin, to talk. But I don’t. And I am someone who can only call friends when all is good so I do what I have done all my life: I find way on my own.

I don’t think I have ever met anyone who knows what it is to be alone like I know alone. My sense of being alone is life-long. There is no alone like “orphan” alone, and sometimes I tire of it. And when I tire of it, for some reason, I seek solitude—perhaps being physically what I feel emotionally will be staisfying.

I think that is why I am considering moving to a rural property—just considering, mind you!