It’s January

I’m not afraid to be alone.

It’s Loneliness I feel in a room full of people that strikes its curled fist into the flaccid muscle of my gut.

The Loneliness that once befriended me as I bundled myself in a blanket of sorrow and grief and loss.

Funny, that loneliness could give me fortitude once. The steel in my spine to stand when all my bones seemed to slide into one another like a deck of cards being shuffled for the next hand. I’d breathe deeply and straighten them out and upward and will them to work for me in an unspoken command.

Loneliness has been my oldest friend.

It’s been around me all of my life, chased from time to time with bouts of joy and hope and of course, Love.

Love and Loneliness go hand in hand, I’ve found.

No one told me about that unlikely marriage. No one ever really does, articulate the necessity Loneliness has of Love or of the feelings felt therein..That Love is the petri dish that allows Loneliness to grow and fester and multiply.

I’ve found that in the absence of Love, whether it sleeps or is just not in the room, Loneliness saunters in and settles down in the vacancy of one’s heart.

If allowed , it will take over each chamber such as a spider would. Small and unassuming in its nature to conceal and thrive among the corner of darkness you’ve conceded to it; accepted it should have, and grown familiar with.

And I’ve chased that Loneliness most of my life.

Sweeping it away with children’s laughter and sunshine and gardening and the joy that Love has often brought to the chambers of my heart.

But,

It’s January and Loneliness has tiptoed in on slippered feet and hung her coat in the corner.

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