There are those who are single that truly believe being in a relationship would take care of much of their loneliness. I beg to differ only because I’m currently in a relationship and feel lonely more than not, yet I don’t blame my partner for that whatsoever. That’s because I don’t think there’s any partner out there who could eliminate my feeling of loneliness. I’ll also go so far as to say I don’t believe there’s any human being out there who can erase anyone’s feeling of loneliness just by being in a romantic relationship with them.
That’s not to say that loneliness doesn’t take a seat on the back-burner for a while when one enters a new romantic relationship. At first, everything seems so bright and glorious. The world appears right-side-up for once where feeling lonely is often the furthest from one’s mind. That’s because there’s such utter excitement with everything in the beginning. I always refer to that part of the relationship as the “gushy-gushy” phase.
During it, each individual becomes gushy while sharing first meals out together, first sunsets seen together, first sunrises together, first sexual connections together, first trips away together, first gifts received together, first movies together, and well I’m sure you get my point. The only loneliness usually felt during this time is when the two are apart and can’t wait to be back in each other’s company and arms.
But, what happens when all that gushiness starts to wear off? When the cute quirks of the other person that you really liked at first become more annoying than silly? When various negative behaviors start coming to light that your newly romantic heart wasn’t able to see so clearly early on? When their needs, wants, and desires begin to take a much higher priority over your own?
Well, you could do what I did. You could start jumping from relationship to relationship to relationship and keep that gushy-gushy feeling going from one person to the next, never allowing yourself to truly feel lonely for any great length of time. Except eventually, you’ll realize like I am now in my current relationship, that the feeling of loneliness has never left me, I just never remained still enough to see that. Yet, I am now, and here I am, on a Saturday night, after spending the entire day alone, and continuing to do the same this evening, sitting with this feeling, rather than doing something to run from it. Yet, that didn’t stop my ego from really attempting to lure me to do just that.
I’m thankful I didn’t. I’m thankful for spending my day entirely alone taking a little walk through a park by the river, watching a movie at the theater, getting some ice cream, taking a stroll around my neighborhood as the sun went down, watching some television and ending it by writing this article. While my ego definitely wanted me to do any number of things that would have staved off that feeling of loneliness for a short while, I resisted it for once and instead sat completely with the loneliness. It’s amazing just how long I’ve been running from dealing with this to be perfectly honest.
This is the very reason why I haven’t resorted to doing my old cut-n-run routines because maybe this is exactly where God wants me to be right now. Maybe I’m just meant to be looking more within than without, seeking a Higher Connection rather than a lower vibrational one, and learning to unconditionally love myself a lot more than I have over the years, when I was always looking for someone else to do that for me. As maybe then, that’s when my loneliness will truly go away, once and for all…
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson
