LONELY

There is a simply wonderful quote by Paul TILLICH:

"Loneliness expresses the pain of being alone and solitude expresses the glory of being alone."

And that seems to sum it up rather neatly really. I hate the loneliness of being alone. It is hateful. An awful feeling. The longing for company. For affection. For chat. For love. For conversation. For ... For ... Something ... Rather than nothing, rather than the nothingness, the silence of loneliness. When you yearn for someone else to share the nothingness with you. Someone to be there. The physical presence of someone. Or even something. The Cat. The Dog.

But then, yes, the glory, the absolute glory, the absolute joy of solitude. The luxury of time spent alone in your own space, with your own company and your own thoughts. I love, I do absolutely love sitting and organising my thoughts. Perhaps with a cup of tea and a biscuit. How heavenly?

And I have become very adept at hiding my lonely. I can appear happy and cheerful and independent and the least lonely person on the planet. And I'm not lonely. I revel in the glory of solitude and appreciate that I can enjoy that time alone; really enjoy time to think and think and over-think. And to get lost in my thoughts and ideas. But then when I have ordered them and organised them, I want to share them and that is when I feel lonely.

I have got Albion, my cat, and she is marvellous. She listens intently and offers affection, but she never seems particularly interested and never offers an opinion. Never either agrees not disagrees.

And I have some of the most tremendous friends that as girl could ever even hope to have. And I know that they would hate to think that I feel so wretched. They will ask what they can do to help. And that is the thing. There isn't anything that they can do. I know that I am loved, and that is a tremendous help. But I still have that empty feeling of being alone.

They say it is better to be alone than to be with someone and still feel alone. And I am sure that that is absolutely true. I think it was Marilyn Monroe who said, "It's better to be unhappy alone than unhappy with someone."

So perhaps that it the thing. The thing that loneliness relates so closely to unhappiness. Perhaps that empty feeling of feeling lonely is actually unhappiness manifesting itself in another form? 

And loneliness is one hell of an epidemic.  Anne Hathaway said; "Loneliness is my least favorite thing about life. The thing that I'm most worried about is just being alone without anybody to care for or someone who will care for me."

But you are never alone with books and ideas and tea. I can amuse myself for days ... But then I realise that perhaps it would be nice to share it all. Sometimes I do think that. That it would be nice to share ideas and thoughts and dreams ... To share all of that with someone who would like to share. 

I mean even Pooh Bear, the intellect and philosopher, Pooh Bear or was it Piglet who exclaimed that; "it is so much friendlier with two." And I am sure that it is.

And it sounds miserable. And it is ... And yet ... And yet ... It isn't ... It really isn't ..  It isn't at all ... It is marvellous ... Simply marvellous.