Inane thoughts and insane ramblings

I stayed home from work today and except for taking Trevor to school, faxing in payroll, and having lunch with Alexis, I slept until 3pm. I enjoy these days of solitude and today I actually contemplated the concept of "alone" a little bit.

Found in Roget’s thesaurus:

Alone, lonely, homeless, orphaned, deserted, forsaken, friendless, lonesome, solitary, lone, unsociable, isolable, isolated, disunited, insular, enisled, distant, on one’s own, by oneself, on one’s tod, unaccompanied, unescorted, unchaperoned, unpaired, fellowless, azygous, monadic, monatomic, celibate, unwedded.

Waiting for Alexis to get home for lunch, I stood on the front porch and thought. I listened to the sounds of solitude. My closest human connection was the sound of wind chimes on someone else’s house. The leaves rustled back and forth, buffeted by the remnant winds of the system formerly known as Hurricane Katrina. Where she ripped New Orleans, now she only mildly whimpers at me. Where she flooded the coast, she only dampens East Tennessee. She paints herself across the sky with shades of grey.

I looked at the waving leaves, still green with color and thought to myself, "You will be gone soon, do you know that? Fall is just around the corner. But here you are, vibrant and oblivious to your impending end."

The first true sign of fall? The arrival of my annual melancholy.

Then I began thinking of the various forms of being alone. I was particularly embracing my self-imposed isolation today. It was an escape to me, some time to hang out with myself. I call that being alone without being lonely. I was content. I was much like Trevor when he has no friends to play with yet he is able to totally entertain himself with the power of his brain and creativity. I have been feeling very peaceful today. It is a great feeling. Being alone without being lonely is a long walk by yourself. It is sitting alone on a mountain ridge contemplating life in a positive way. It is Rebecca in the middle of a stream trying to trick a fish into thinking a bunch of feathers and metal is a nice treat.

Another type of loneliness is being lonely yet not alone. It is the polar opposite of being alone without being lonely. These are times when you can be ina room of 20 people, even people you love, but feel trapped on a deserted tundra a thousand miles from the next living soul. For whatever reason, you feel psychologically invisible. No one gets you. No one understands you. You feel lost or like you just don’t fit in. I think this is the most painful loneliness because it is like being at a fabulous grand buffet. Drinks flow and the most delectable foods surround you yet you hunger and thirst insatiably. It is being in a crowded room and having the urge to scream out, "For God’s sake! Won’t someone please help me?"

Then there is the loneliness of loss. The most obvious is the loss of a loved one, for whatever reason. Death, moves, disagreements, divorce, or physical separation. What happens to the love between a couple madly in love for 65 years when the wife dies? Is it really better to have loved and lost? Probably so but that is of little consolation. It still hurts when that loved one is replaced by that cruel void that becomes your new companion.

Similar to that is the loneliness of lost opportunity. This is drowning in your own sea of "what ifs". These realizations that your life is missing something that you could have had "but for" some other reason. I could have been a nurse but I dropped out of school pregnant with my first child. I could have been married to this incredible person but I was young and did something stupid. I could have still been married if only I’d chosen my family over alcohol. That loneliness is cancerous and implies a resignation to living a life of regrets.