First posted in 2015. || Image Credit: Photo by Alice Hampson on Unsplash
There is a thin line between isolation and loneliness, dear diary, and that line is choice.
Isolation is a place that I choose to put myself into. I close the doors, open your dusty covers and write away my words with only the thoughts in my head filling up the space in the room. There is the silence of the natural world around me, the noises that normally file into the background are now my companion as I draw my fears and desires out in metaphors in between your thin blue lines.
Loneliness, dear diary, is when I come to you when I desperate. When I want to scream my feelings and thoughts to the rooftops, but I know no one is there to listen to them. I want reaction, I want something to respond to the thousands of thoughts that tumble through my mind like water tumbling over the edge of a waterfall.
I like isolation. Isolation gives me a safe place in which I can reflect on the true meaning of things. It gives me a place where I can consider and think, with only my heartbeat to keep me noticing the passage of time. There are no deadlines here, not in this quiet space, no to do lists or requirements or views or arguments. There is simply being me, breathing with as much gusto as I can manage, trying to find that sweet moment of peace where my thoughts flow from my mind to my fingertips with nothing impeding their flow or way.
Loneliness isn’t just desperation, its desire. It’s a nervous tick, a constant checking of my phone to hope that something is there for me to respond to instead of your silent pages. It is a jump at every noise, a craving inside my soul not just for interaction but for something more than just whatever the hell it is I have right now.
Isolation is thought, and it is introspection. It is taking a mirror to one’s self and analysing every facet of myself to try and learn about myself. It is a positive action, a development of one’s self for the general progress of my understanding of life.
Loneliness is destructive. It is a quiet whisper that says you are not wanted, that you are alone, that there is no one to be your companion. Loneliness is the fear that this is what your life will be like, and that there is nothing you can do about it.
So what is this, dear diary? This is introspection, this is isolation of my own accord, and this is me speaking of loneliness as both a fear and a reality.
But life is changing. I am positive.
Things will be good, dear diary. They will be good.
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Alex.J.Cobalt 