Loneliness?

Dear Reader,

I invite you to follow me gently down this trail of thought I once had and am now revisiting.

What is loneliness? What does it mean to be alone truly?

Is it when your seed is thrown so far that, when you take root and your head finally breaches the Earth, you look around one day and realize you’ve been growing far from those like you? Is it taking your first gasp in a huge, scary world and realizing that you’re the only one of your kind in a field of corn? Or is it finally growing enough to be seen by the rest of the world, thinking you’re surrounded by roses of your kind, only to discover you’re still alone? To notice that, despite being surrounded by what appears to be your genetic code, you still feel out of place, like a sliver of raw spaghetti in a bucket of hay, or a sewing needle in a bowl of pins. You may look like them, and may even have the same base function, but at the core—at the deepest of depths—you can never truly be like them.

Despite all your deepest wishes and hardest efforts, you can never be what they are. Yet, neither can you despise yourself for your difference. After all, you were brought into this world for a purpose—not to fit in and be just like everyone you see, not to conform to others' notions of who you are meant to be, what you are meant to do, or your essence. Rather, you exist to live out the purpose given to you by your Maker. The rest is all about perspective and preference, is it not?

Instead, live your greater purpose, collectively making where you stand a place of beauty. A red, crimson beauty carrying a scent so lovely it tempts nearby destinies to draw closer, take a deep breath, and maybe lead you to a greater purpose—one that not everyone gets to achieve. Embellish the world outside your birthplace. Leave behind what you knew for a world unknown, where foul scents, dehydration, and cruel owners reside. A world dangerous and scary, one that ultimately leads to death.

So, is this loneliness? This feeling so deep in your gut, etched into your heart. This fear that you may do more damage than good to your environment because of the thorns growing alongside your ribs, etched into your spine. In your mind. Thorns you grew only to protect yourself from fair-weather fingers, cruel intentions, and fake love. Thorns that, yes, repel the weakest of wills, but might also deprive you of the very love you seek.

There is a feeling of self-hatred because you’re different. And because you are different, there will be attempts to change you simply because your difference is not understood, not seen as necessary. Despite your difference being the foundation of your existence—the reason you are you—you will be required to change if you want to be sold into a “good” home among your brothers and sisters, or lucky enough to be the special one given to a lover on Valentine’s Day or placed on the proposal table in a room lit with candles.

This self-hatred burrows as deeply as your roots. Just as surely as you know you’ll never be the rose they want you to be, you know they’ll never accept you as you are. Not because you’re pricking fingers with your thorns—you manage to stay trimmed because self-awareness and development are important—but because your difference is seen as alien. Your difference is unacceptable simply because it’s not what they planned for. They didn’t imagine you would be different. They envisioned and wanted a different shade of red, different petal shapes, and different thorn lengths. And so, it is demanded of you to conform.

But what about you? What about you, who is required to change? Will you abandon your ecosystem and conform just to fit into someone else’s world? Will you forsake your role as the main character, just to fade into the background of someone else’s story because that is where society deems you belong?

So, I ask again: What is loneliness?

With love and petals,

Jeiel Damina.