Loneliness is an interesting feeling. Next to the loneliness which shatters many hearts into a million sharp edged pieces which then keep tugging at your insides, there exists a loneliness offering different kind of pain.

Out of all the places to be, this different kind of painful loneliness hit me in the middle of a busy city street. I was on my way, I was walking somewhere with a purpose and it hit me in the face like a damp cold rag. 

Source: Pixabay
Source: Pixabay

Every being on the street came to a momentary standstill. As if a slow-motion fight-scene from a Matrix movie when the high-kick stops for a second mid air. With all those people around me I had never felt more lonely. It wasn’t the fact that I wasn’t noticed. It wasn’t the fact they looked different than I, nor that I looked different than them. It was simply knowing that if none of those people wouldn’t have been on the street, nothing would have been different. Sounds a bit like a paradox. A game of sorts trying to fit together a puzzle. Add a piece, take out a piece. Compare the differences. 

I wondered to myself, why had I even expected to feel any connection to all of those strangers? Why had I ever considered stopping and exchanging words with any of them? All that people carry is pain. A lot of pain and sorrow- always hidden in their over-sized luggage labelled “Personal”. Often we don’t want anyone else’s joys either.So why stop and speak when all it does is add? But oh, how I wanted to stop and speak and find out. The pain, the joy, and all the grey areas in between. My loneliness existed because I knew no stranger would agree to fulfill my wishes. They would think I had gone crazy because of loneliness. They would think I normally speak to myself. Out of loneliness.

And this loneliness hurt. Differently than it would have hurt after finding out you’ve lost a loved one. It hurt less but somehow still felt important. The pain of this loneliness could only be described as a soundproof room. Being stuck in it, with no sound outgoing, nor incoming. And I was happy with this loneliness because it wasn’t the hopeless kind. The kind you feel after you find out your world has fallen apart. 

It was an interesting feeling- wanting to go to these strangers and create a connection and at the same time having the fear of judgement. Fear and Judgement- the perfect recipe for loneliness. That nice kind of loneliness.

 

Prompt “Build your Own” by Daily Post writing challenge