The Loneliest Girl

The Loneliest Girl

Dear Reader,

The hard part about growing up lonely is that nobody thinks that you are. Nobody notices because it is easier not to. And if anybody came along who did care, a lonely little girl knows how to keep her loneliness to herself. She knows the exact weight of it. The jagged shape of it that digs into her spine. She knows it is a burden. After all, her back has grown strong – yet weary – from carrying it for so long. She is told that she is strong, so very independent. (Sure, all human beings — by definition — may be utterly dependent on one another, but not her.) Being able to take care of herself is a blessing to others. Now, if she wouldn’t mind, there are other people to tend to, so along with your own load, could you help carry their difficulties as well? Be a blessing, not a burden. Help, don’t ever hinder. And, if you stumble, we may ask if you are okay, but be a good little girl and say, “Yes, ma’am. Yes, sir. I’m just fine.” and swallow it down. For what else is a need for attention but pride? Why do you need people to see you? To look right at you with undivided attention? Who do you think you are? In the grand scheme of time and the universe, you are nothing. Do you feel it? Do you feel that nothingness that you are? The only good you can do is help those who are not nothing. Because other people have problems that are much louder than your own. And loneliness is the most silent problem of all. So is it really a problem? Or have you merely made it up for attention. Attention you’ve never received.

Attention you should have received. Attention you deserved. Dear Reader, you deserved attention.

A lack of caring for emotional needs by someone who ought to have cared. Someone (or someones) who gave themselves the job to care, to pay attention, and then abandoned that responsibility. Left the car driving with no one at the wheel. You had no choice but to unbuckle yourself from your carseat, climb into the driver’s seat, and learn how to steer. Walls were built. They grew higher and higher - more and more sturdy over the years. And the sad truth is, now it is that girl’s problem. And what a problem it is to have to deal with the aftermath of being unknown.

Growing up as a girl who is told that she is loved, yet never feels it. Becoming a woman who can’t say “I love you” because it’s a phrase that was repeated to her with such insincerity that it hurt worse than any insult. A phrase she swore she would never say if they were only empty words. An obligation. A custom. A facade.

And now, as an adult, how does one deal with the loneliness? Luckily, human beings are quite wonderful at adapting. So, a person can survive such a dreadful plague. Externally, they may even appear to be alive. 

It never becomes joyful; you cannot gain joy in isolation. But alas, one learns to live with it. You pretend to know yourself, although that is impossible. One cannot truly know oneself without the self being reflected back to them by others who care. There is no data to be collected about “the self” in seclusion. No medium for creation. And so, the loneliest girl must resign to do all of the “independent” things that are supposed to bring fulfillment. And in doing so, a person can mimic a meaningful life just enough to keep their head above the water.

That is — until they get a taste of being known.

I, personally, received a minute morsel of this once. And I can tell you, there is no drug like it. If I could find a way to bottle it up and sell it, I would be the richest person alive (and my own best customer). 

My small sample of being seen and known came unexpectedly. It was slow at first. He was a stranger, and independent-lonely girls are wary of strangers. (Sort of ironic — the unknown fearing the unknown.) I began to run away as he got closer. The steady beat of loneliness that had served as a soundtrack to my life grew louder and louder as I ran, until it became deafening, and I was forced to turn and face it. I stopped in my tracks, shook my head vigorously, and dug my heels into the ground as I told myself, Not this time. This time, I have a choice. Out of nothing but sheer bravery and the desire to truly live, I turned and walked back to him. And there he was. Still.

Suddenly, my walls melted. There were no years of chipping away at them brick by brick as I had feared would be the case if I were to let anyone in. The walls were still very much intact for everyone else. Yet, there he was — and they were gone. Vanished. Bliss. Ecstasy. The ability to breathe for the first time. The realization that this is what living was supposed to feel like all along.

And then, it was gone. He was gone. It was the “wrong time”.

The loneliness came back, and I realized how suffocating it was. It’s hard to shrink lungs which have expanded. To shove them back into your rib cage and lock them up. Crying aides in shrinking them back down to size, I’ve discovered. But they will never be the same. Lungs that have breathed cannot forget. They can never again be satisfied by shallow inhalations.

I wish there was a quick and easy cure. A pill to pop. A shake to drink. Some product to buy. 

The thing about loneliness — you cannot cure it yourself. No matter how hard you try or how badly you want to breathe again. People will try to sell you the idea that you can, but you can’t. It’s better to learn that truth than to fight against it. It will always be a losing battle. 

But, how do I find someone that will be my cure? That will find, in me, the cure to their own loneliness?

I wish I knew. I wish he’d stayed. I hope another comes along. It is suffocating to be unknown.

(P.S. – I do apologize if you thought there would be advice at the end of this. Something to help others who feel so alone. The problem is, I am still young, and have not yet figured it out. For now, we can commiserate in the feeling of loneliness. I can confirm that it is real, and it is crippling. But I do not believe that there is a secret formula to finding someone whose soul was made as a companion to your own. I do, however, believe that they are out there. I was not made for everyone, neither were you. We need certain people, certain relationships, to feel and be truly alive. So it is not as simple as “surround yourself with people”. It has to be certain people. 

We know who those people are, not long after meeting them. Something inside of us tells us that it is right. That they are our people. That a relationship (whatever kind it may be) with them would make life richer, better, worth living. Maybe it’s simply psychology, we like the people that exhibit certain traits that our complex psyche’s have been conditioned to favor. But I don’t think so. I think there is something much deeper at play. Because love (true, deep, honest, vulnerable love) truly changes everything. So, no wonder loneliness (the absence of such love) is so excruciating. Two opposites on a pendulum.

So, maybe, it is a privilege to feel so lonely. Because who is the loneliest girl in the world if not a girl with the greatest potential for love. Someday. Maybe that is the advice. I will keep you updated.)

Sincerely,

Teigue A. Emerson