I love dinner alone. I love to do most things alone, actually - the movies, shopping, running, events and classes. And dinner. Oh gosh how I love a solo dinner. And, due to the amount of travel i do for work, I've attuned this skill - sit at the bar. Chat with the staff. Observe the patrons. Strike up conversation where necessary. Bring a book if you want to be left alone. Never use the phone as a distraction (you're not doing it right!). Enjoy yourself. Order only what you REALLY want to eat. And drink. Not to impress anyone you're with, or to satiate someone else's cravings. Just. You.
so tonight - for my birthday - i went for dinner alone.
Now, if I'm being completely honest, it wasn't a conscious decision. My parents called me in the morning, and asked me my plans for the day, and as the words were forming, i realized i hadn't planned a single thing. In fact, i had intentionally not planned anything thinking, 'it's my birthday, i can't do [insert any proposed plan] that night'. And what was left, was a gaping hole in my schedule - a night with no plans. A night that i was asked about multiple times, to share plans and excitement. A night I'm supposed to be celebrating life and birth and all those things.
And, while i put very little weight on birthdays, i felt withdrawn and sad. I felt deflated. I felt like my day - my one day a year - was slipping away from me.
It was just another day. Another birthday. Another year to add to the life experience list. Another trip around the sun. A simple 24 hours in which to work, smile, connect with those i love, be with myself, and submerge myself in some form of joy. And yet, today felt different. It felt different than any other day of the year - and in some ways, it felt different than most birthdays.
my birthday has always felt like New Years to me. Particularly since I'm not a huge fan of January first as a time of rebirth and reflection. A birthday - on the other hand - has always felt like a new chance. A new beginning. Another option for the story of life. I've always used it as a chance to reflect and renew. A chance to reset and to observe the reality of my life at the current moment, and take action to improve what i need, maintain what i need, and shed that which is not bringing joy.
And this year - amongst my genuine feelings of happiness and awareness of the beautiful life I have, I felt sheer loneliness.
And perhaps part of that is simply being an adult. being an adult feels much more lonely than life used to. Consistent visiting and face to face interaction becomes not only unnecessary, but also near impossible. Kids. Jobs. Sports. Health. Relaxation. Relationships exist in - what feels like - much more meaningful ways, but in much more distant and absent ways as well.
to clarify. I'm happy. My life is good. My life is GREAT. i have been blessed - and i mean that in the most literal sense. The universe and the greater powers and whatever thing that is larger than us that you believe in, has provided me with some immeasurable happiness for reasons i can't begin to understand. My family members are my best friends - they are hilarious and kind and they teach me every day of my life about love and relationships, and hard work and lightness of life. My friends are full of life and incomparable joy and care. I often am perplexed as to why i am permitted to remain friends with the majority of them. I can't think of a single person in my life who brings negativity, who i have allowed to permeate my soul. Those who do, share in a way that is so vulnerable, i have the chance to learn about safety and kindness and the oppourtunity to be compassionate. I love my career more than the majority of people do, and it affords me the opportunity to travel and meet with people and explore humanity. I have access to art and creativity and those things inspire and ignite my own personal expression. I've experience trials - many trials - of physical and emotional health, relationships, friendships, loss and betrayal. I've been provided opportunity to make decisions and fail - safely. And with fairly reasonable consequences. And when i can reflect upon these things, i know in my soul, my life is full and lovely and i am utterly grateful for the way my soul can truly shine.
And here's where i find myself confused; lost: we can be so happy. And fulfilled. And feel so loved. SO loved. And still, feel completely lonely. you can love all of yourself - every single imperfectly perfect piece. And still feel a hole in your heart when in solitude.
Tonight, i went to dinner alone. And for the first time in a very very long time, i felt lonely.
i can't help but wonder. And consider. And try to fully understand. Why do i feel lonely? I'm rarely alone. I spend most days alone - working from home, or travelling - but i am constantly dealing with people either on the phone, or in meetings, or work trips that involve hours and hours on end, of entertainment, or analysis. I have friends who reach out to me constantly via social media. Who email and text and call. I have family who reaches out consistently, and colleagues who send me hilarious emails throughout the day, and call to check in. When sitting by myself at a table at dinner, i am surrounded by people - servers and other guests. When i head into the store to get bags for the compost, there are people walking past me through each of the aisle.
When i am alone, i enjoy it - i alternate my time between an exhaustive social calendar, and sheer alone time. Some of my favourite memories - amongst many socially populated memories with friends galore - are those where I'm travelling alone, or eating alone, or driving alone, or sitting in my kitchen painting. Alone. where i can binge Netflix, and paint and drink beer and just exist without forcing conversation and feeling the anxiety of filling silence.
But that is nothing compared to a lonliness. Lonliness strikes when you know you are surrounded by those who love you, and you can't shake the need to cry whenever one of them ends the phone call. Lonliness is reading the many messages from those who you haven't spoken to in days/months/years, and knowing you are loved, and being unable to lift that weight. Lonliness is sitting in a restaurant, and for the first time in a very long time, looking across the restaurant, and feeling solitude.
Loneliness is not a product of my life. It's not a symptom of a distant or incomplete social circle. it seems to me that lonliness - at least in this case. in my case. currently - is simply a moment in time where i reflect on those i want to be with, and don't have the control or the ability. I want to see my parents, and laugh with them, and eat sandwiches and watch tv shows with subtitles and do the dishes. I want to be with my sisters and eat too many wings and watch hilarious videos on the internet and laugh until we cry, and sometimes cry because we cry. I want to sit with my friends and their kids and watch their kids fight over finishing their dinners, and dance to john Mayer, and answer questions with more questions, and paint sparkle paintings, and i want to hear about the banality of those friend's lives because that's what life is made of and i want to be part of the inner circle that we feel so strongly in university, but find it slipping as we dig our way deeper and deeper into 'adult life'. I want to sit at a bar - alone - and have the bartender tell me about their favourite cocktail and why it's their favourite and why they work at this bar, on this street, with this menu. And i think - today - because i can't do these things, i feel lonely.
5 years ago today, I was celebrating my birthday with a group of incredible friends. Drinks, and party supplies (like acrylic glasses telling those who could observe them, to 'celebrate'), and immense amounts of laughter and love, like little floating hearts above everyone's heads, in the dark, crowded and noisy bar. And while all of this was happening, a close friend of mine was in a serious bike accident, 2 blocks away. An accident that would ultimately - 2 weeks later - take his life. An accident that caused a couple of guests to show up to my celebration late, and one that caused us to speculate about the reason for the backed up traffic.
And i recall a moment - that night - of sitting in that place, surrounded by wonderful, joyful, lovely humans. A moment in which i felt lonely. It was fleeting. Brief before i awoke to what i was surrounded with. But it was a clear and inexplicable moment of lonliness.
And when i think about that - every year on my birthday since that birthday in that place - i feel this gap in my heart. In my soul. I feel a hardness, and a lump in my throat. And i feel some sort of sadness that feels different than other kinds of sadness. And while i feel complete joy - particularly over the past 4 birthdays, 2 birthdays (as related to an appreciation for life giving me another year to enjoy) - it's spiked with a touch of loneliness. They coexist quite nicely - the joy and the loneliness - allowing space for one another. But both showing themselves clearly.
The wonderful thing about emotions, and feelings is that we have a near reset button. we can go to bed. We can lay in bed, and FEEL. Feel those emotions happening - soaking in. We can cry if we need, or smile at the thoughts of the day. We can do both, and we can do both amongst other emotional reactions. And then we can fall asleep and dream and wake up. And the beautiful thing about waking up is that we can feel a whole other set of emotions as soon as we become aware of our consciousness. And I'm sure that's symbolic - of life, and love and work and relationships and travel and solitude. I'm sure there's something in there to teach us about how to approach each day, month, year. Each relationship, and each emotion itself. But then there's something about just feeling it, isn't there?
so i just feel. I just feel the lonliness. I feel the tug on my heart amongst the love and the gratitude. I open myself to feeling the lump in my throat and acknowledging it's there for me to feel. And listen to.
And, i also feel the happiness. I allow my mouth to involuntarily smile when i receive acts of love. I close my eyes to the exhausting happiness of hearing my sister's voice in her car from across the country. And the sight of my other sister's name on my call display, even when unable to answer. I allow myself to bathe in the love and outward expression of love (LOVE wholly cow so much love) from friends and family in varying levels of intensity on the day that is known as my birthday.
And i honour those feelings, without pitting them against one another. I allow them to exist together. Because they seem to be able to console one another. They seem to exist to build one another up.
And who am i to take that away from them? Who am i to mess with my soul's intention.
So i sit. And i bask in the lonliness. And i feel the happiness. And i know when i wake up tomorrow, it'll start all over again.