Is it possible to tame your solitude?

I feel like this question is always roaming around in my head. Sometimes the question is hiding in the room, full of laughter, but still patiently watching me from the corner. Requesting to be answered. It hangs in the night sky, like the moon, just as lonely, with only occasionally appearing proud stars keeping it company.

In order to answer the question, so it would stop following me around like a shadow, I tried to imagine my solitude, my loneliness like a human being.

I imagined my solitude as a creature with a human body. I tried to create a relationship with her—after all, she was already living in my home! I had nothing else to do, but to make her my friend. And we became friends. We even got a cat together!

We used to sit facing each other, and we talked and talked and talked…we got to know each other. She said that by knowing my story she understood me, and nothing understood me better than my sweet Solitude. I told her where it hurt and she put her palm there so gently.

We also loved long walks. Like pirates, we would explore the streets of our city. I took her by the sea. Standing on the highest dune, I showed her the paths that had led me to her. We even went to the mountains together. Reaching the summit was scary for both of us, but O-M-G we were so proud of each other! We created a safe place. We created a home together—her paintings are hanging on these walls still. In the evenings we loved to dance, and I whispered to her once: you are inspiring me and I am thankful to you for all the lessons you gave me.

I was creating because of her. I was strong. I got to know myself. I finally accepted myself.

I heard that love lasts three years. For three years we tied each other’s hearts into one loving fist, until one day the rope burst:

I don‘t want to be with you anymore, I said.

I didn’t want her in my home anymore. Before the door to our house opened, I began to gasp for air. I began to look for other bodies, trying to hide myself in them, so that Solitude wouldn’t find me any longer. But she kept finding me in the silence of the night and pulling me from the sheets, hair by hair. She told me she didn’t recognize me anymore, that I was giving myself away like the never-ending sand in the desert. She said that the body will always remain just the body, because I will never learn how to show them where the pain inside my body is. And I still crave for a different touch, just like a drop of water running through the desert. It made me blind.

I am sitting in the middle of the room, covering my eyes with both my palms so that I cannot see the loneliness. My body is no longer warm from other bodies.

She watches me in pain. I ask her: Did I betray you?

She answers me in a simple way:

“Everyone has me. I am born with each person’s first scream, just after the bloody baby is pulled out of the womb. I am also the one who is holding the human hand in his last breath. I live side by side, every day, but not everyone sees and accepts me as I am. Even for those like you, trying to tame me, I am sometimes uncomfortable and intimidating. How natural and utterly human it is to look for comfort and warmth in other humans?”

Is it possible to tame loneliness? I was only able to answer this question after finally accepting Solitude as my friend. Loneliness is not some kind of a monster who steals your sunshine and laughter; it is purely the piece of you that makes you whole and sane. You cannot run away from her or tame her, but you can accept her as part of your own and walk along the path of life with her—as friend.

~