Sit With Your Loneliness

It was President's Day 2009. Since I worked in the financial industry, I was one of the rare folks who got the day off (Yay for Fed Holidays!). After spending the morning lounging around my place, I decided to venture out with my newly acquired digital SLR to the quaint town of St. Charles, IL.

While I was taking some shots of an abandoned theater, I happened to notice a gentleman still in the Starbucks next door watching me while drinking his coffee. Upon realizing I saw him looking at me, he smiled. I smiled back and then went on with taking photos of the marquee. Seeing that it was a bit chilly out that day, it was February after all, I eventually ducted into the Starbucks myself to warm-up before returning to the task at hand. While I relaxed and enjoyed a beverage myself, I causally observed the gentleman.

He just sat by the window watching cars pass on the streets and people walking up and down the sidewalks. I really wanted to go over to him and find out what brought him out that day, but I didn't ask. He looked content and I wasn't sure how my interest in his situation would be received. Instead, I found myself developing theories of my own - maybe he had the day off like I did, or maybe he was unemployed and needed to get out of the house. Either way, there was a sense of loneliness about him I couldn't seem to shake.

Normally, I don't find myself thinking about this experience often, but I was thinking about it a lot last Fall/Winter. At the time I was going through a transition and a clusterfuck of things that made me feel very lonely and unwell.

After a lovely birthday dinner with some of my friends, S and I got to talk about "things." During this conversation I mentioned how I was feeling and she said to me, "Sit with your loneliness."

In the days and weeks to come the words, "Sit with your loneliness" would pass through my mind a lot. I wasn't quite sure what to do with this advice so I filed it away. I figured if and when the time was right I would pull it out of said filing for review.

In the beginning, the life map initiative I began working on at the start of 2011 had two advantages to it - 1) I was beginning to work towards something I had wanted for many years and 2) It distracted me from the lonely/unwell state I mentioned above. (Or, at least I convinced myself it would distract me.) However, over time I came to the realization that wasn't going to be the case. That's when I pulled out the "Sit with your loneliness" advice from the filing cabinet it had been exiled to. I still didn't know what it meant, but this time I let it take up residence at my home. At first I didn't do much with my new roommate - I pretty much ignored it; however, eventually we hung out a bit and became buds.

I still can't explain specifically what "sitting with your loneliness" means, but I do know I have sat with my loneliness; and I'm glad I did. It actually helped me figure out the true root cause of my unsettled feeling which turned out not to be about my transition, the clusterfuck of events that took place when I first really began to feel the way I did or anything else others might have perceived as the cause at the time.

Today, as I type this post I no longer feel lonely or unwell. Instead, I sit here with a sense of calm and peace. As I've said many times recently, this is a feeling I haven't had in a really long time - or possibly ever. It's such a foreign feeling for me that I am a bit reluctant to let take up residence, but I anticipate that will change over times.

A few days ago I was catching S up on "things" going on in my world. It was during this discussion her advice to me was . . . "Sit with your calm."

I believe she said this to me in a joking manner, but little did she know that was actually my plan.


Thanks to the awesomeness that was the Blogger service outage this past week, I was unable to post this Thursday Blog project on Thursday. So, on this rainy, Sunday morning, I am sharing my thoughts on the topic for this past week's Thursday Blog Project: With a nod to Mothers Day, what was the best advice you ever got from your mom.

No, S is not my mom, but she does share "motherly advice" with me from time-to-time and this is one of the pieces of advice.

I encourage you to read what motherly advice my fellow bloggers have received from their moms:
• Mom of Many (Susanna)

• Momarock (Sara)

• Merryland Girl (Melissa)

Until later . . .