Lone Some

If there is one thing I hate, it's being lonely.

If there is something that I hate slightly more than that, it's feeling like I'm wasting my time.

These are two seemingly unrelated things that I've managed to draw a correlation between when I more than likely have no business drawing it. Nonetheless, it's done and now I think about it often.

Today I woke up. I stared at myself in the mirror and patted my belly a couple of times before hopping in the shower. When I came downstairs I reclined in a chair and read facebook and wikipedia in the hopes that someone or something would pop up and give me the stimulation of interaction that I need. Here I am at the end of the day and I feel that I've accomplished absolutely nothing of real worth, (ironically, I voted today).

Two years ago I was stricken with depression and grief when the girl who was my whole world dumped me like a sack of moldy, annoying potatoes. I realized that in placing so much emphasis on her and away from friendships, I had neglected to procure new relationships or sustain my old ones. Out in the cold with almost no one to turn to, I was forced to get creative. I had to distract myself from the depression, distract myself from the loneliness, and move on.

Naturally, I became a guitarist. Not just an annoying, sit in the back of the room and play indiscernible versions of 'Freebird' kind of guitarist, but a, (kind of), real guitarist: The kind people wouldn't mind listening to. Ok, maybe that's a stretch - but it was a feat for me. Also in that time I wrote creatively and came up with new ideas for videos and movies that I would later attempt to make. I did a lot, and not only that, but what I made was uniquely mine. All of this happened because it was all that I had. A strange person in a newly foreign land.

Moving on has seen me change in a lot of ways. Most obviously, I've become more centered in my faith in God, though out of necessity not my own pious superiority. I've made new friends and become a relative master at getting people to at least pretend to enjoy my company. If you give me a warm cup of coffee, I can cradle it with smiling eyes and chit-chat about anything - linoleum floors if that's what you're passionate about. A few years ago this would be unheard of. Little by little my heart healed as I filled its vacancies with swams of new people.

The thing about people is this: they are time consuming. I go weeks at the time without playing guitar. My other pet hobbies barely get off the ground before I send them, smoldering, into a pile of rejected dreams. Most importantly, I'm not making something of myself the way I always hoped I would. I've traded the power of pain, which led me to make and do so much, for the security and comfort of people. I don't have to get creative anymore because I don't need distracting. I have friends now!

And I'm thankful.

But I can't get this out of my head. Maybe I need to be uncomfortable again. Maybe being really unhappy, submitting myself to that loneliness that I've tried so hard to escape - maybe that's the only way I can become the man I need to be.

Maybe it's time to be a foreigner again.