Loneliness, never have I felt this more intensely, and thoroughly, than the last few years. At times, it has felt like an anchor tied to my feet, dragging me to the dark, murky, depths of despair, to a place where fear assured me I would never leave, forever denied my chance to joyfully dance upon the solid land of connection, to the vibrant rhythm of life. For that, to me, is loneliness, when I sink into myself and sever the connections to all that is, when my mind screams silently "You are alone" and incessantly whispers "you always will be".

In watching my family split apart, in helplessly observing my love fall in love with another, in having what is most important to me denied, in being labeled and understood as something and someone I am not, in witnessing my mind show me and tell me that there is only one way out of this pain, in having my heart save me from my mind, in the warm tickling feeling of tears slowly working their way down my face while my eyes burn, in the deep tearing ache within my chest, these are just some of the places I have found loneliness.

And yet, the heart knows that which the mind obfuscates. I am not alone, I am never alone, and I do not require someone else to make me whole.

I have known the lifting of loneliness, in the rising of my lowered gaze, in the sight of life around me, in the immersion of feelings not of my own creation, in the calm floating upwards from the deep, in the connections so obvious when the mind is still and calm.

The mind quiets, the heart opens, and loneliness is an illusion. For separation of any kind is illusion, we are all one at the source. One is never truly alone in life, loneliness is a mental state.

Humbly,
~TS