You're Not Alone

 

I've been a loner since I was a young child.  That's one thing.

I suffered through periods of loneliness up until I was about 30.  Once Tina and I got married, she pretty much cured that. That's another thing, a different thing.

I have experienced the sensation of being alone at times for the past 20 years or so.  So that's a thing different from the first two, and the thing I want to discuss. Perhaps the three things are tied together, I don't know. 

It was been very apparent to me that various people who have influenced me tended to pull me off the beaten path of life.  When it was happening, I was fully aware of it, yet I embraced the influence they were having, because it felt right. 

Those people challenged me to reconsider views I had taken on simply because people around me who I respected held those views. 

As time went on, I became more comfortable in taking some positions I would not have previously taken.

Gradually I found that I was becoming less and less mainstream. That's when the sensation of being alone began. That's when the battle to make the best of it began.

I had two choices - 1) Conform to some ideas that everything within me didn't want to conform to, or  2) Find a way to move on and hold the positions I felt strongly about without alienating people.

There was a caveat to choice #2. It would be a lonely path.  The feeling of being alone would rear it's head periodically. It would be brutal at times. That came with the territory.

Fortunately, as I mentioned at the beginning, I have two things going for me.  I'm still a loner, and I still have the love and support of my wife.  Apart from those, I am not sure what would have become of me.

Once in a while, while experiencing that sensation of being alone, I am reminded that that is in fact a lie.  I am NOT.  I'll write something, and a random person will make an encouraging comment, and let me know that they too may be experiencing that sensation of being alone.

It's that kind of interaction that makes this entire lonely path worth every second.  I know, in that moment, that I connected with just one person, and perhaps eased their own feeling of being alone.

You, my friend, whoever you are, you are not alone.