There is a very human part of me that struggles with being alone. It has been a lifetime of learning as I have tried to find how to be alone and yet be absorbed by my world. There is no more obvious example of this than how I have reacted with my fellow humans. I look back, and I realize how I have often reached across the divide and gathered companions while at the same time I was holding onto something that kept me separate.
It happens even now. It may only be a passing glance, or a long and intimate conversation. The connection may only be subtle, but we touch one another’s aloneness and we are connected.
There are times that the presence of another seems such a familiar place. Someone is so similar that I am almost seeing a reflection of myself and whom I have become. Other times the difference is strange and foreign yet inviting. For the moment we are companions and we dance away a time of passing opportunity. Polarities sometimes attract and sometimes push away.
All my life, my experience of aloneness has been a mystery I have cautiously explored. I have never really understood or absorbed what it means to be alone and at the same time stand side by side with my companions. I only know that I am less cautious and restrained than I was half a century ago.