Being Alone

I am sitting here, in a restaurant full of people, and yet I feel alone. Many times, I have been sitting around with friends, everyone indulging in loud laughter and merriment, and yet the only company I had was the chip-and-dip in my hand.

What makes me feel alone, despite the din and chatter around? Some attribute it to the lack of alcohol in my blood. I dont. These are just two discrete and independent events occurring together by an act of providence.

My loneliness is not defined by the fact that I am having dinner by myself. I have had many a dinner on a table with only the candle or the wine glass as company, and yet nevet felt alone. Loneliness is not a physical state, it is a mental state.

Why is the mind so restless, so troubled? Or sometimes it is numbed into not being able to think at all? If I was writer, I could claim inspiration and a writers’ block at the same time.

Being alone for me is a state where I have too many things twisting and turning like a tornado in my head. The numbness is the silence like in the eye of the tornado. I can’t, or won’t share what is inside.

In this state of being alone, I reach out to others, for friendship, for small talk, to share, to forget, to bury, to run away…..all these are but escape mechanisms. Being alone feels like a black hole where nothing comes out, despite all the attempts that might be made. In this state of being alone, I become more aware of myself, I try to find the real me that has been lost somewhere, at sometime. My heightened emotional phase makes me more touchy, more sensitive, and ironically, may be a better boss at work. My lack of frailty was probably the most intimidating at work. Suddenly, I am human again. There is indeed light even in this black hole.

Why do I feel I am alone ? There has been no event, no incident that has brought me to these crossroads. How did I then get here ? Did I just drop down, from the sky, like a dead pigeon, in this yellow circle on the road ?

My writing sounds as confused as my thinking. And that actually maybe good. Atleast the mind, the heart, and my fingers are moving together ! The chip-and-dip are all that I have.

Being alone, Being human.