Shared Loneliness

Loneliness.

It’s a feeling that I have gotten particularly used to over the past several years. 

I used to think that it was just me. I used to believe that I was the only one who spent their Friday nights alone in bed with another run of The Office or How I Met Your Mother playing. However, as I started to spend time with other people, I started to realize just how many of us felt the same level of disconnect that I did.

Maybe it wasn’t that I was different.

Maybe it was something else that we, as humans, are experiencing which draws us away from one another.

There were few, if any, opportunities for social interaction during my Writtens preparation. However, whenever I did get the chance to interact with someone, I nearly burst with affection and joy. I often apologized to my friends for talking so much and for so long. They all chuckled and said that they understood how I felt.

All of the stress lifted off my shoulders simply by laughing with another person. 

It did not matter who I was talking to; all that mattered was that we were sharing in an experience, exchanging some form of affection, sharing in what felt missing.

It was then that I realized what was driving our loneliness.

Loneliness is caused by the inability to share love.

Love is meant to be shared, experienced between persons. Sure, it is nice to receive affection, but how can we really know what it really means to be loved until we do the same? Of course, that leads in to the real problem.

We are afraid.

Deep in our hearts, we know that love requires self-sacrifice. We have believe that we have something to lose if we share our love with others, especially those who are not guaranteed to give it back to us. We fear losing ourselves, and in the process, we lose the chance to grow in love, to experience the friendship and community that belongs to each member of the human race.

There are people everywhere, people in need of simple love.

And yet we ignore them, all because we did not choose for them, myself especially.

I interact with people every day. I go to Walgreen’s enough to be on a first name basis with the cashier (Dennis is the bomb.com y’all). I work in a lab with three grad students and four undergraduates. I get coffee twice a day. I attend Mass almost every day. I am part of a large department with over a hundred graduate students.

And yet, I bow my head, saving all of my love for the people I choose, the people I am closest to, the people I expect to return my love.

But I did not choose these people, at least, not at first.

Each and every person in our lives was given to us by God. Each soul has a purpose in the world, and we can become a part of that purpose. It may be as small as contributing to the businesses we frequent. It may be as large as being a friend or family member. Regardless of how we encounter someone else, we are a part of their story.

We do not choose the people who enter our lives.

But we do get to choose to love them for however long we want.

Sometimes we are great at loving others. We smile and share in their lives for a time, but then something happens, and we are left wondering if that love was worth it. Did it really matter if we spent more time at the coffee counter? Did it really matter if we went to those club meetings? Did those extra activities actually matter?

Did the love I give matter at all?

The answer to love is always simple: yes.

During my time of Writtens, I was particularly good at loving strangers. I could smile to people at church, talk to cashiers, and interact with rival football teams. However, it was the people that I knew from past activities or people that I only knew on an acquaintance level that I chose to ignore.

“The way you love and experience love here is a reflection of how God wants to love you. He wants to do so simply, in the people we are often annoyed by, the people we often we choose to ignore, the people we generally would not expect.” ~Fr. Brian

Like I have said time and time again, God loves us through the unexpected moments.

It is our choice to be open to these moments and to love the souls we are given in those moments which helps us find the love we have been missing all along.

I was walking in on the Monday morning of my first written exam. My stomach was doing back flips. My hands were shaking, and my palms were sweaty. My head hurt. My heart was going faster than I wanted. My rosary was pinned to my side.

I really needed some love that morning.

As I walked towards the building, a girl from my cohort pulled up her bike. Due to being in such a different field of research, I did not know her well enough to push through my barrier of fear. I needed love that day, and instead of taking the risk to receive the love I desired, I kept my head down.

Through my music I heard her yell something.

I turned around and took my headphones off. My fellow biologist smiled at me and wished me good luck. 

Honestly, I was shocked. We were hardly friends, and yet she remembered that I was taking my written exams and wished me well. I was afraid to give love, and yet she choose to love me anyways.

Maybe we would feel a lot less lonely if we took the risk to love others like that.

Maybe we would find our place in the world a lot faster if we weren’t afraid to receive the love others want to share with us.

Now I am not saying that we should not choose to love others more deeply. What I am trying to say is that we need to stop putting up barriers to how much love we can give and receive. It is never a loss to love one of God’s little ones. Yes, we must be careful with our hearts, but simply wishing someone well, caring for a hurting soul, sharing time with another soul, these things are never a loss.

Sometimes these moments of love will grow deeper in to true friendships, but oftentimes they will not.

That’s ok.

All that matters, all that ever really matters, is love.