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Love and Trauma
There is a difference between being alone and being lonely. ‘Being alone’ is a nuanced phrase that needs to be examined closer. It inherently means ‘being without other humans.’ That part needs highlighting. You can experience loneliness even in the presence of other humans. You can be in an area absent of other humans. You can never be alone.
There’s some confusion about who brought this idea together, and it may be a conglomerate of ideas spanning Hemmingway to Rumi, but the idea is “of course you’re broken, that’s how the light gets in.” You’re not broken. You may be in progress. Aren’t we all? Life is not a destination, but a journey, with a series of stations. Even if you don’t return here, go there and read the Station, Robert Hastings. Detours are okay, and a now a feature of modern writing.
Oh, the Places You Will Go, Doctor Seuss. There are lot of waiting places. There will be the sense of movement and the sense of failure and falling back. Hopefully you won’t arrive at the Doldrums. It’s a real place. Just past the Phantom Tollbooth. If you go there, make sure you have a dog named Tock.
Learning to love is not learning to trust. Trust feels more like a grooming thing. It’s what the Little Prince did to the Fox. We need trust. It’s nice when you can find a human who is mostly…
