Alienation

I feel strangely disconnected. Strangely I say, though truth be told, it’s hardly strange that I feel alone in this surging tide pool of human interaction. It is impossible to feel alone if you’re alone. Loneliness only hits when you compare your own lack of company to the company those around you keep. When you’re by yourself it doesn’t bother you that all you have are your thoughts. Most often those thoughts are highly informative and deeply enlightening. When you’re by yourself in a crowd, only then is loneliness brought home to you. As I sit here by myself surrounded by the families and friends, I feel alone. I feel cut off. I am an island of solitude in a sea of grasping connectivity. I do not wish this loneliness, this melancholy, yet in the same breath I do not wish the company of others. I have yearned for independence and now it lays shining within my grasp but loneliness eats away at my resolve. Loneliness in a crowd. Only in a crowd can the fact of your loneliness be made plain to you. Only in the face of the abundance of kinship can your own lack be made abundantly clear. My loneliness has been made clear to me. I resent it, yet I welcome it.
Just Me.