The Spaces Of Loneliness.
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Loneliness can be our biggest fear. The thing to avoid. Being lonely could be felt as, more or less, not being worthy of love.
However, being alone may appear, one day, as the necessary hardship to go through if we want to make life — the one we have dreamt of — happen. Some kind of trial for warriors to go through in order to make a way out of the normal paths and already-designed boxes.
Why do we initially leave for spaces of loneliness? Because we think we need to fly solo to make it happen.
The environment whispers it’s not adapted to our expectations. So we decide, it’s now time to build our own world. We have reached a point where it seems more reasonable, less risky for our own safety, to leave for the spaces of the unknown.
A point where it looks easier to face our own reality, even if it’s raw, even if it makes our voice shake, our hearts tear.
Unexpectedly, those may turn out to be fields of bright flowers, instead of the battlefields we would formerly expect.
Loneliness is indeed a way out of the outside brouhaha. Not to avoid people, but to think quietly, to meditate, and take a step back from life’s unstoppable movement of people and information. A refuge for healing or recovery.
More than anything, spaces of loneliness are where we learn to be strong and resilient. Unfortunately, one doesn’t grow strong when surrounded by people who have always agreed with them, always allowed them to do what they wanted, or always showed love and support.
Most of the time, strength comes from building, on our own, our own way. Strength doesn’t come out of already-prepared boxes. Those spaces were built by other people, by the ones who came to the world before us.
Most of the time, these boxes are places to settle, not to garden our soul, make it grow and become the gift it was supposed to be.
Everyone is here for a reason, aren’t they? Each of us has something special to say, haven’t we? Spaces of loneliness, allow us to find it, and make it real.
And the day comes — that’s the most amazing part — when loneliness ends up as a tasting choice of our own. That instant when loneliness becomes a blessing.
How do we get to that conclusion? That happens when we end up finding ourselves somewhere we really like, and with people we feel connected to, in an environment that speaks our words. Somewhere we only managed to get because we flew solo.
It can be brief, maybe too twirling to be caught, too intense to be pictured, but the feeling is a forever one.
There, savoring the taste of these moments, we figure out that being on our own was actually the way to reach that emotional state of peace, deep happiness, and consistency with what’s around us. It could be, for instance, at the end of a long walk. Real or imaginary, but through an adventurous country of the unpredictable.
This kind of moment has no price. Because it’s us, and only us. At first, this is what we had dreamt of for a while, maybe for years, and the reasons why we started. It’s also the bunch of questions from that past, that we were then trying to resolve. The rupture we fostered, with all its uncertainty.
Then, it’s how we got there, the ways we created with our own tired feet and eyes on the road, our own art when endangered, what kept our faith when everything seemed to distract us from the way. And then that special moment when we got there. We now stand on the top of our heart, on the pedestal of our breath.
Inside our suitcase, now and forever, will be all those discoveries of our own. A warm feeling of relief now spreads everywhere, inside of us, from every cell to every other. Yes, we could do that. We were enough. Those moments are nothing but magic. Our magic, our own gems. Only us and the dirt on our hands.
This was only ourselves. And now that we are back from that mountain, now that we have flown solo once, we’ll never be the same any more.
Those memories, from the spaces of loneliness, will be feeding our thoughts, our faith, our strength, for years. No, they are not only moments, instants, a pile of seconds framed by a beautiful picture, because we have given all our heart to reach it. Nothing was pre-packed, nobody came to tell us what to do, or to lend a hand.
We got there alone, only us, with our lights and shadows, carrying our beautiful angels and facing our darkest demons, growing our faith only through the sound of our own anthem.
No, those moments won’t only be a beautiful story we will tell the others once we are back.
We try, but sometimes it is impossible to explain what happened. Sometimes, words are not enough to relate the most important parts of our stories, the experiential treasures that reach well beyond our senses, what the eyes have seen, and the music and sound the ears have heard on the way.
Unrelatable, possibly, but it has attired our selves with light — one that illuminates the tale of your expeditions clinging to our own skin.
The truth is, loneliness calls for loneliness. It’s addictive.
Spaces of loneliness have made us grow, because they made us face our fears. Because, by making ourselves feel abandoned, lost, they have made us find our own strengths to get out of trouble.
Because, once we got there, we had no other choices other than making it happen by ourselves. Because it was that, or giving up. So, we simply did it.
However, we sometimes had to fight. That was a battle mostly against, or for, ourselves.
We won’t forget the winter instants, our greyest hours. The thorny talks with the ones that have decided to leave us alone, to our dreams.
We won’t forget the unrelatable moments of emptiness. When the freedom we had once brandished as a flag turned into a freezing sword of guilt, of having left what we once had. When the fog around us got too thick, too thick to see anything, when fear knocked back on our doors, to suck all our energy.
We won’t forget the nights when we thought we were down, with all our former hopes vanished, lost to our pipe dreams.
But, we didn’t give up.
What are our spaces of loneliness? They are the succession of the spaces where we decide to go to, to learn on our own. They are our path.
To get started, to take at last, this mysterious way of the life-adventurers, was the hardest part. But then, by walking on the contorted and tangled roads, we have learnt how to be strong.
Today, and forever, those spaces are our strength. They could be our novel, the tale of a maiden trip that we would like to never reach an end.
Loneliness is an addiction because that’s where we build ourselves. Once we have touched that, discovered our butterfly wings, it’s too late to turn back.
We have now become that gorgeous butterfly we had once imagined. Freedom hasn’t killed us, we are still on solid ground. And surprisingly, safe.
Safe, but both lost and found. And now ready, to write another story.
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Sophie Gregoire is a thinker. You may often find her with a new idea or a new concept to explain, holding a notebook and pencil. Also found reading and writing, she is more than anything an independent soul. She enjoys traveling and getting lost in new places, namely in Asia. She says it helps understanding our worlds, its people and the humankind. She loves writing to transform her endless thoughts into some kind of reality, and to keep the little piece of sanity she still has. She savors coffee, encounters, Yoga and meditation, and cats… while her own cat is her greatest muse! You could contact Sophie via Facebook and on her writing page.
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