Don't lie about it.

I have been toying with this idea for a long time because while others have felt this sense of being utterly and entirely alone I haven’t felt this way.
Sure I have been on the outside of a big group of girls, dressed up in their old fashioned dresses on old fashioned Sunday at an old fashioned bible college, posing on the forbidden stairs, taking pictures and laughing at each other. I have sat on the side and watched them, feeling left out and lonely and ugly, because unlike them and their oh so desirable little waists and feathered hair, I was stout and preferred straight hair with highlights which didn’t blend in to the old fashioned look the whole girls dormitory went for, calling it modest, in place of out of date and frumpy. I was never one of them, though I blended, and found friends more my current, which good or bad, is neither here nor there. But it was this one moment that I felt alone and I made a silent vow, I would never feel that way again.
Today I am perfectly at ease, by myself, at a restaurant, reading or people watching. Being there, breathing in the smells and seeing the colors, reminds me that other people are there too. I am not morose and a withdrawn wall flower either because I love my Saturday nights at the Murphy’s house, singing and playing games, or Sunday nights with the guys making deep fried French toast and all 10 of us snuggling and watching cartoons or even those cherished walks with my friend Gina as we discuss the beautiful boy I am currently crushing on (he has a good personality, is absolutely dreamy, seemingly whip smart, and I am still waiting to see about the sense of humor). My gym time is spent huffing and puffing with my friend Misty or Stefania, while we go over the day and what the plans are for next week, the weekend, or next year.
So I don’t understand this thought of being alone. What does it feel like to think, though you talk to others on a daily basis, that you are alone? What is it like to believe, in yourself, that while you are talking, working, and living alongside others that you are alone?
Is it selfishness that drives us to say that we are alone? That because others are not doting on us and our needs that we are indeed alone? That is where I was in college. I was being selfish and thinking that others needed to be tuned in to my needs and desires when I wasn’t at all trying to be tuned into theirs. When you start caring about the needs of others you then become less concerned about yourself and your needs and you will find that you are not alone.
Two very opposite stories have been told this week. One by a friend from college, he might have tuned into this but I slightly liked him and hoped that coffee mixed with hot chocolate would meld into something more but it never did but we are still friends and I wouldn’t have it any other way. He was out and about, skateboarding and came across a young man sitting on a park bench. My friend passed him and then felt this intense need to go talk to the boy. Come to find out, through sobbing and tears, that he felt alone and was actually sitting there contemplating taking his own life. Said friend was able to help him and speak to him about the truest Friend and witness. I am interested and have inquired if anything further has happened.
The second is about a woman that was found, mummified, in her own home about a year after she had passed away. She had been a model for magazine way back when and though she kept to herself, was said to have been loved by many. She was found a YEAR after she died. The neighbor finally was interested to see what had happened to her due to cobwebs and yellowed newspapers.
Those people, in all intents and purposes, were alone. But why were they? I wonder if they had reached out more would they have felt or died the way they did?
I will try not to go off on a “single girl tangent” but I get tired of the idea that because I am single that I am alone. Believe me, if something were to happen to me, there would be enough people that would wonder and raise some questions. I haven’t felt that I needed, though wanted, someone in my life to make me feel not alone. I will save the argument of being loved for another day because using the same thought as above, I am loved. Yes, yes, it’s not that special bond of husband and wife but I still know, by my friends, I am loved.
I am not trying to toot my own horn but it comes from a college freshman sitting on a couch feeling sorry for herself that she was alone while surrounded by many that changed this outlook. I am not alone because I refuse to allow others to be lonely.
Besides, how can I say I am alone? I didn’t have the weight of the world’s sin on my shoulders and my father turning his back on me now did I?