An odd pleasure this one. From many people's perspective I spend more time alone than they would find comfortable. I came home from church last Sunday morning and since then I have been out twice for a couple of hours and a friend called for an hour, a total of about five hours company. And yet today I have settled for a whole day of very deliberate solitude.
Solitude is more than just being alone. It involves choice, even if that choice is just to enjoy the quietness. The quality of solitude changes as one has more of it.
For many solitude is a luxury they just can't have - maybe they live in over-crowded homes or there are demanding children or elderly relatives on the scene. Others have not solitude but loneliness - although loneliness can also be found in busy places, in other people's crowds.
I could experience my life as lonely but instead I experience it as rich and fulfilling. A pleasure to be savoured.
I'll need to ponder on this a while. I understand your thoughts on being lonely in someone elses crowd. That might be worse than being lonely alone.
ReplyDeleteMy son tells us constantly that he is lonely or that he was lonely and how sad it made him. The funny thing is, that his meaning of the word is that mom or dad weren't with him. If I'm in the living room and he's in his bedroom he might come out and tell me that he was lonely in there but I'm only a few feet away so it seems silly that he could be feeling lonely. When he first started swimming lessons he didn't like going because he got so very lonely, even though there was an instructor, and several other children there he was lonely because we weren't with him. He's been lonely at relatives home's if we've dropped him off to be watched. The list goes on. And he explains it as such a heart wrenching lonely.
ReplyDeleteI've thought for the longest time, while hes been using this phrase "I was so lonely," that he's not using the correct word but having you mention being lonely in a crowd, which I very much can understand, I now am thinking that he's been using the correct word all along, I just haven't been looking at his situation the appropriate way.
And solitude, it can definitely be a wonderful thing.
I know I haven't posted in a few days either but how are things by you? You have been finding pockets of joy throughout each day? It's raining here once again, which means the frigid cold temps have broken for a bit but again all this rain... yuck!