Alone
“I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself.”
How does it feel to be alone? I guess it depends on what definition of alone you choose to talk about. I am not completely alone, I have family members that still keep me company and give me support, I still have some friends, perhaps not physically close, but they are out there.
If we talk about isolation, as in, choosing to stay away from people. Refraining from making new friends, destroying old friendships, that's a different kind of alone.
The kind of alone that comes as a choice-- I made this choice almost about a year ago. I chose to rid of those "bad influences" in my life, and in the process, ended up alone. Losing my two best friends and isolating myself from every other potential friend that I had met through work. I change jobs in order to avoid those people, and as any other situation where you meet new people, I struggled. I was never good at making friends--people usually reached out to me first.
So when I started my new job, this exact situation started happening. People started reaching out to me and I started wondering... What is my move here. Do I let them reach out and do I let them in, or do I push them away?
For the longest time I chose to push them away. I chose to make up excuses not to hang out with them and to just avoid certain conversations. For almost a year I went like this--shutting myself from the world and the people around me. I just wanted to be left alone. It didn't really help that I had also lost my ability to trust people. Fear had come over me and I had decided not to trust new people--to prevent myself from any sort of attachment.
This wouldn't last, however, as new people would not stop reaching out-- As new people would not take "no" for an answer. And sooner than later I found myself opening back up-- I found myself letting people in, trusting them. I found myself feeling renewed...and I no longer felt the need to be left alone.
I now felt the need for company. For friendship. For hope.
If we talk about isolation, as in, choosing to stay away from people. Refraining from making new friends, destroying old friendships, that's a different kind of alone.
The kind of alone that comes as a choice-- I made this choice almost about a year ago. I chose to rid of those "bad influences" in my life, and in the process, ended up alone. Losing my two best friends and isolating myself from every other potential friend that I had met through work. I change jobs in order to avoid those people, and as any other situation where you meet new people, I struggled. I was never good at making friends--people usually reached out to me first.
So when I started my new job, this exact situation started happening. People started reaching out to me and I started wondering... What is my move here. Do I let them reach out and do I let them in, or do I push them away?
For the longest time I chose to push them away. I chose to make up excuses not to hang out with them and to just avoid certain conversations. For almost a year I went like this--shutting myself from the world and the people around me. I just wanted to be left alone. It didn't really help that I had also lost my ability to trust people. Fear had come over me and I had decided not to trust new people--to prevent myself from any sort of attachment.
This wouldn't last, however, as new people would not stop reaching out-- As new people would not take "no" for an answer. And sooner than later I found myself opening back up-- I found myself letting people in, trusting them. I found myself feeling renewed...and I no longer felt the need to be left alone.
I now felt the need for company. For friendship. For hope.
