Entry for October 20, 2008

I have been here for 4 hours. I am slightly amazed and deeply grateful that time is actually passing when my world feels like it has come to a standstill. This is one of those times in life when we feel lost and pretty much alone. Your support systems are nowhere in sight. People who owe you – answers, explanations, favours – have turned their back on you. It’s all very real and just the slightest bit incredible, because somewhere inside, you didn’t expect any different, or any better from them.

Last night I lay awake in bed a long time last night before I forced myself to sleep with the promise that it was a better place to be than here, than awake. It had been a long time since I’d cried myself to sleep and I remember feeling about 7 years old. As vulnerable, as afraid and yet, as wise as children can be at that age. Knowing, that it was gone. So much of it now all gone and never coming back because somewhere inside, you’d promised yourself you were never going there again. Never returning to those places, never believing those faces, never wanting to need them or needing to want them ever again.

It is true that we are born alone and we die alone. I wish someone had told me that we spend much of the time in between feeling that way too. And that is the worst kind of loneliness. Where there are people and opportunities everywhere, but none meant for you.