I hate the word lonely. Somewhere along the line this word became ununtterable to me. It even makes me uncomfortable when others say it. It means that you need other people around. It means you are too weak to be on your own. Yet, despite the bile rising in the back of my throat as I type, I think I am experiencing loneliness.
This year I am spending Christmas alone while I dogsit for a family I know. I think vacationing alone, which is more or less what this is, could be really incredible, except that I spend all of my life out here in LA alone, so it’s not exactly a break. There is no one in my new western life that is easy to be around. There is no one here that I don’t have to be careful with, no one that I trust. Therefore, I have managed to master that oh so fine art of feeling completely alone in a room full of people.
Paradoxically, I feel completely connected to life and the world here. I feel like I belong in California in a way that I have never felt before. I am exactly where I am supposed to be. I think that is another reason I have a hard time saying that I am lonely, because in this whole other very fulfilling sense, I am not. This place is my home. I just live by myself in it right now.
Which leads me to this conclusion: this is my time to be alone. This is the season for loneliness. I say season because I know this will pass, just as all of the other seasons in my life thus far have passed, too. This is the Christmas I spend alone.
There is value in being alone. Some people are petrified of it, but I simultaneously indulge in it like it’s a luxury and lament in it like a memorial to what was and what could have been. And both feelings are that extreme. I love to be alone. I love the freedom I have to do whatever I like, or do nothing at all. I love spending time thinking and discovering myself, even, sometimes especially, when it is difficult. I love the strength I feel in knowing that I can be alone and I relish my independence. But I am sad, too, like I lost everyone I ever loved, which in a way, I did when I left home.
I am alone because I ran from my old life. I needed a do-over. I just wanted a place to be new. Of course, I understand now that I am not new here. In fact, I am a cliche here. I am a love-weary single afraid to let people in because they will inevitably leave her. I am the lame protagonist in most romantic comedies only, instead of my ex-boyfriend hijacking my sperm donation so that we could eventually end up together through a series of hi-jinks or my best friend dying and leaving her child in the joint custody of me and her husband’s devastatingly handsome yet boorish best friend who eventually falls in love with me through a series of hi-jinks, I probably just need therapy to figure out how to open my heart again.
I know that I will likely be more happy once I begin to let people in, yet my immediate reaction to it is defensive. The idea of others coming into this free life that I have built for myself and imposing their needs and views makes me feel like someone is giving my heart an Indian burn. But it’s mine! I made it! I love it! I only want to share it if you promise not to take anything I love and turn it into a memory with you that I will find myself lamenting Christmases from now in some new city thousands of miles away (though I bet Christmases in Rome are nice).
There will be a time to find that balance, because of what everyone says about friendship and falling in love and because I do somewhere deep down believe that other people have stuff to bring to the table that I need, but not this Christmas. This Christmas is all mine. This Christmas I am alone. This Christmas I am lonely. Blech. There, I said it.
