Loneliness

I have been experiencing a period of honesty, as you may have noticed. I'm honest with myself about a lot of things that I was oppressing not too long ago. My life toward my friends, family, and acquaintances is much more forward, like I'm not taking the time to edit my letter to the world. It is empowering, but I have to face feelings that aren't so happy.

Like being disappointed in my internship, for example.

I'm also realizing how much I miss home, and the people I am familiar with. I am really lonely, down here in South Florida. I'm not lonely for good company. I enjoy the people I work alongside . . . they are pretty cool. But, all of us are moving on to the next thing, none of those things in one state, even. We are all headed off: Mike to New York, Jane to Michigan, myself to the west. We share the Bee Heaven experience fully, but we have nothing in the past to connect us, and little in the future beyond a month or so. I am not lonely when I am with them at all.

Its that longterm loneliness . . . nobody who I know and love from the past is experiencing this with me. I have had no visitors. I have made no visits. I am out of touch with everybody else, and they are out of touch with me. I can't understand what they are going through, and they can't understand what I am going through. This is a symptom of moving too frequently and far, of course. You make friends everywhere, and since you can't be everywhere at once, you have to settle for sharing fragments of other people's lives. I am lonely for what I am missing in the lives of all the people I know.

I am also lonely because this is not my culture. Since I am still in America, I keep expecting the culture to feel more like home than, say, Uganda, East Africa. But, the area's more subtle differences from my home culture are more shocking; they surprise me more when I realize they are differences at all.

There are too many strangers in South Florida for me to feel at ease. Nobody knows me, nobody cares for me. I'm left on my own limited devices, for the most part. I am not part of a social network beyond Bee Heaven. I could get hit by a drunk driver, and the community in general would not be affected by my death or serious injury quite as dramatically as my hometown would. My presence means very little.

I don't mean to whine. And I don't plan to wallow in my loneliness. After all, there are so many interesting things and people to see in this world. God promises to be rather resourceful with our experiences, too. My time here in loneliness could be building me up for something else. And, there is no doubt about it, we are all very alone by nature. But, let us hope that in our loneliness we find tranquil solitude, not desperate separation.