Are(n't) you feeling Alone?
Earlier today, while drinking a coffee and eating bread with tomato and cheese at my local restaurant Terra Bela, the woman who works there and is more or less my age asked me the following question:
Aren't You ( feeling ) Alone?**
She explained to met that, since her husband had left her ( a week and a half ago ) and since her mom had broken her arm ( a couple of days back ), she is feeling pretty lonely and that, in turn, made her think of me and my situation.
( FYI: I'm probably the restaurant's most loyal client / frequent visitor, when I'm in town )
I get her.
This bachelor foreigner, living like a hermit writer, alone in his house in this godforsaken ( pardon my French ) hamlet in the Portuguese mountains, without even a car or driver's license...
he must be
lonely.
Her question resulted in me explaining ( not for the first time ) why I need to / choose to be alone most of the time. It also made me realize that I'm feeling pretty good ( alone or not ) these days.
Being alone isn't the same as being lonely. I do not often feel lonely.
This hasn't always been the case though.
I've felt lonely a lot in the past.
Even more when I saw how many people around me ended up in ( more or less ) loving relationships. I witnessed how most of my friends and all of my cousins, even my own siblings settled, got married and became parents and then parents again. It was as if almost everybody around me changed while I kept struggling in a neverending fight with myself.
I have been single most of my life and believe me when I say that this hasn't always been a choice.
I have wished for a loving relationship for so many years, without luck so far.
In fact, now I think of it, I could probably write a book about loneliness as well as on alone-ness. This guy graduated Cum Laude in both subjects.
To give you an idea:
I lived alone on the smallest of the Canary Islands ( not more than 5 by 5 km in size and with almost more ( inactive ) volcanoes than people ). I was working on a film project back then but the project never finished and it was more of a struggle than that it was fun, I often felt very alone. Almost a decade earlier, I went to / escaped to Spain twice ( in 2007 and 2009 ), by myself. First to learn Spanish and the second time to try to find a place to live. It didn't work out.
I've always felt like I didn't fit in, in any kind of group, school, job or team and I've been in many.
I'm sure many of you ( fellow bloggers ) can relate to this.
Now I think of it, I probably feel like I "fit in here", with all the misfits , nerds, weirdos, introverts, misunderstood creatives and so on.
I have been looking for a place like this for most of my life and only discovered it three years ago, aged 35.
It was in 2017, 10 years after graduating from University and after having struggled during most of these years, that I found a place where I felt like I belonged. About a year later, I bought my ( second ) home, here in the mountains in Portugal.
Yeah, I have struggled and suffered loads. I have felt burnt out and depressed for a long, long time.
But, even though I still have difficult days and happiness doesn't come naturally to me, even though every single day feels like another attempt or chance to try and enjoy life, to be more easy-going, to go with the flow, to be more positive and so on, I can't help but feel that I'm doing pretty good lately.
It seems like I'm turning into ✨SuperZENsitivosaurus✨, slowly but steadily.
And to maintain this state of mind, I need a lot of alone time. Alone time balanced out with social time but probably even more alone time than time spent in the company of others.
Lately, I'm realizing that, when I compare myself with a lot of other people ( both on- and offline ) around me, people that I care about, I'm doing really good.
In fact, I decided to write this essay today, in an attempt to help out a couple of people on here, who are clearly struggling lately. People who have become my friends in the last couple of years, even though we never met in real life ( and hopefully some other people that I haven't connected with yet ).
𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘴 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘺𝘰𝘶, 𝘮𝘺 𝘧𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘴.
𝘐 𝘩𝘰𝘱𝘦 𝘪𝘵 𝘩𝘦𝘭𝘱𝘴 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘪𝘯 𝘢𝘯𝘺 𝘸𝘢𝘺, 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯 𝘪𝘧 𝘪𝘵'𝘴 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘢 𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘺 𝘣𝘪𝘵.
𝘒𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘺𝘰𝘶'𝘳𝘦 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘢𝘭𝘰𝘯𝘦.
𝘒𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘐'𝘷𝘦 𝘣𝘦𝘦𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘰𝘰, 𝘢 𝘣𝘪𝘨 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘮𝘺 𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘦.
𝘒𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘐'𝘮 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘧 𝘺𝘰𝘶.
𝘐 𝘴𝘦𝘯𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘩𝘰𝘱𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭 𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘢𝘭𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘴𝘰𝘰𝘯.
It's fair to say that feeling alone is one of the underlying themes in my current writing:
The Story of Hypersensitivosaurus
Not so strange if you realize that its main character ( and hopefully your favorite dino ) is very much based on me.
Luckily, I'm slowly starting to master alone-ness and it seems like it is in fact leading to increased productivity, focus and even health / happiness.
( I wonder if I need to thank @drrune and his rune reading for that. I'm sure it has played a part in the process )
Nevertheless, it's all about balance.
I need to make sure that I don't isolate myself too much. It helps to have my twin sister and family at 20 km distance ( a family of extraverts who always have people over on their 2.5 acres of land ), it helps that I go on daily walks and tend to talk easily with people whenever they cross my path, it sure helps to speak many languages.
I'm a talkative introvert.
Enough about me. Let's put the spotlights on the writer character in The Life of Hypersensitivosaurus and on Hypersensitivosaurus himself, focusing on a couple of scenes on alone- and / or loneliness that I managed to find in last November's writing:
For Your Information: Regina is the name / brand of his ( and my ) typewriter.
And here's a more fun scene, where I wrote about ( not ) being alone
( it's part of the actual Hypersensitivosaurus story, the story in the book )
To be more precise, it's a fragment of an ( alternative and more ) happy ending and describes a meeting between Hypersensitivosaurus and his dad. The latter visits his now grown-up son who he hasn't been in contact with for many years
( sorry for the Font. This is the one that I apparently used here, last November and I don't like to make things prettier than they are/ were ).
And last but not least, I'll leave you with a continuation of the scene that I ended in a cliffhanger ( at least @ryivhnn notice this and asked for more ) a couple of days ago in The Life of Hypersensitivosaurus - You are Not a Raptor
If you haven't read that post from 3 days ago, go there first.
If you have, here's Part 2:
He remained silent and drank some more and she took this as a sign to continue her story:
“You have always been different, standing out from your parents and even from your siblings, let alone from other raptors and you know what? That's exactly the reason why I've always liked you.”
She smiled at him and this time he knew that this emotion was genuine. She kept looking at him as if she expected a response and he replied:
“I've always liked you too...”
( and this was millions of years before U2 started making music, so let there be no misunderstanding here )
“So.... he continued hesitantly, … what did you mean with you are not a raptor? Do you know that you made me feel like I'm adopted, as if I haven't been raised by my own parents. And, if I'm totally honest with you, I have sensed this for a long, long time...”
She looked at him with an unclear expression on her face ( possibly pity ) and scraped her voice:
...I honestly don't know about that. I was born a year later than you and nobody ever told me, but I have to say one thing:
Not only have you always acted in a unique way, you also don't resemble any other raptor that I know of. And we didn't even mention your diet...
she laughed out loud and he couldn't tell if she was just playing with him or being serious here. Whatever was the case, he felt empty inside and sensed it was more than just hunger.
She seemed to pick up on his emotion, as she quickly continued sprouting her thoughts:
“No need to feel bad about this. You're different in the best way possible. Also, I can tell by how your family treated you, that they've always accepted you as one of their own. They loved to have you around.”
This last remark just made him want to hug her. If it wasn't for his short, clumsy arms and her broad back, he would have done exactly that. So, instead, he gave her the least scary, teeth baring smile that he could produce. It must have looked strange to her, but she knew him well enough to understand that this was meant as a sign of gratefulness.
“Thank you”, he said. “All this means a lot to me, even more coming from you. For a moment, I thought I was an entirely different species, but I guess that we're all dinosaurs in the end, so it doesn't really matter."
This is the second almost song lyric post I've encountered in one sitting (the first one was Chained to the
WheelWall by @tarazkp). Coincidence? I THINK NOT.It's clearly synchronicity
I also absolutely did not sing both that title and this one in my head >_>
So Hyper isn't a raptor but we still don't know what he is, ahh well they're right they're all dinosaurs in the end XD
Yay for turning into Hyperzensitivosaurus!
Was it? Interesting to hear this. I spent quite a lot of time on 'composing' it :<)
I'm sure you absolutely did not sing it haha
I'm pretty sure he is a raptor ( he just doesn't like labels )
I'm liking it quite a lot, so far.
Obrigado... thank you, amigo... this post helps calm the waters of the river, a river that many of us are crossing.
I hope very soon to start reading from page number 1, those stories of Hypersensitivesaurus.
Abrazo!
De nada, amigo :<)
I'm happy to have calmed down the stormy sea a little.
This brings to mind something I've been thinking about off and on. The realisation that even for those of us in loving relationships, one of us will likely one day have to deal with the loss of the other. Is it more painful to be alone when you have connected so closely with someone? I can now understand the urge to avoid that pain by shunning making connections and having a family.
It might be but mainly because we tend to keep seeing ourselves as separate from others and because most of us find it so very hard to love ourselves. Therefore, if a relation ends we mainly focusing on what we're missing and we feel sorry for ourselves.
Ideally, two people who love themselves - who form a couple - should also be able to feel good when they're alone / without the other.
Thank you for your interesting and thoughtful comment :<)
Nice long post. I am reading it in 2 sittings.i need to catch up with Hypersensitivosaurus.
It is good to hear that you are doing well. Although I do not know u as yet - I believe I understand your words and hence wish you well.
It is good that you are a talkative introvert. 😀
2 sittings, not too bad. Focus is not my middle name so, even though I read loads and try to be mindful of most things I do, I do many things in more than 1 sitting.
Thank you. I'm doing pretty good these days, can't complain ( or, actually, I can. I'm Dutch after all and it's a skill we all learn there haha ). You should have seen the me from two or 3 years ago, when I just started blogging ;<)
I'm glad to have connected with you and appreciate your comment.
Knuffel uit Portugal,
Vincent
Thank you very much for this essay. It comes to me like a soft breeze that refresh me. I'm glad to find this in my timeline in a day like this.
I think that your work with Hypersensitivesaurus is beautiful and I can relate with his hypersensiteveness. Surely, by seeing ourselves reflected in the work of someone else we can feel less lonely.
I know that the Hypersensitivesaurus have tiny arms but I don't so I send him a biiiiiiiig cat hug haha ♥️♥️
De nada, amiga.
I think you were meant to see this. Glad it helped you a little.
Very happy to hear this :<)
The cat hug is very much appreciated, just be careful with those claws of yours.
Un abrazo fuerte,
Vincent
I can certainly relate to a lot of what you've said in this post @vincentnijman.
I've always had similar feelings, but it wasn't until 2010 when I accidentally found Cambodia while trying to flee poverty and a life of underpaid manual labor in the USA.
Even though most of my life in Cambodia was spent alone, I never felt "lonely" there. There is something about the Cambodian people, they are just too warm, too curious, and you always become nearly best friends with the people living all around you.
I still to this day have never met such warm and open people. Even here in the Caribbean, @Sreypov wonders why everybody is so uptight.
The Caribbean is famous for chill vibes, but not according to Cambodians. Cambodians know to conversate and engage in the moment, and that goes a long way in making one feel not lonely in a community.
Much love to you from us in Paramaribo.
Hi Justin.
Forgot to reply to this.
Love to read this. Some people say this about the Portuguese but I find it hard to really connect, make it past the small talk. Especially with those who just speak Portuguese and are way older than me. They are friendly, but I won't call them friends.
This sounds amazing.
I guess I should try to visit Cambodia one day...
For now I'll try to make myself at home in Portugal, first though.
Many good vibes your way. I know you need them more than ever. If you need any help, you know where to find me...
✨
I have never felt lonelier than when I lived in Australia, in a super-social environment but not having the same value set as most middle-class Australians. FFWD to Thailand where the expat community is a strange assortment of (honestly 😆) weird people who are all doing highly creative things. I am less physically with people "like me" than ever before but I feel happier in my isolation and almost never lonely.
My super-sensitive self feels the "you don't belong" here keenly, and when one can NEVER belong (LOL a 187cm blonde dutch girl in Asia LOL) it is a blessed release from expectation.
Lovely post, my dear. Loving those dividers. x
Interesting to hear this, although I can totally imagine loneliness in / on Australia.
Glad to hear you hardly every feel lonely in your Thai 'isolation'.
I knew you would "get" this and you must be quite a sight in Asia ;<)
Big hug from Portugal,
P.S. I need a little more variety, once again, more than this one-café-hamlet with 50 people that I can hardly connect with. So I'm probably gonna spend some time in a 1500 people town nearby pretty soon.
Thank you for being so vulnerable ❤️ I can relate a lot. Sometimes I feel I'm not meant to "fit in" to any groups. I'm very much a one-on-one person. Those connections I value tremendously though. I'm also used to spending a lot of time on my own but I'm starting to feel that I want to change that. For me, I think it's time to try something new. I'm still working on acceptance. Some parts of me I just don't like, or I wish I was able to act in a different way. But I also know it's a gift to be highly sensitive, life has many nuances that way 🙂 But I'm still living with a fear of becoming depressed again, sometimes it feels like it's always a battle, to stay positive.
I really like that heart divider, very inspiring.
Big hug 🤗
Sometimes, I get tired being asked that question. A woman in her late 30s lol, alone in a beach town. Oh that must be lonely but no, because
I have diablo with me now! 😊 Thanks for the tip !
Truth!
:<)
I get it.
Diabolica and Diablo.
Not sure if I'd dare to get close to a cat and a woman with those names.
That woman must be a witch, right? ;<)
I'm curious what your real name is.
Big hug,
Vincent
Ha ha. Let's see. . .
Soon maybe! 😊
Soon maybe sure is an interesting name ;<)
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