Loneliness Discoursed: Part 2

Continued after Loneliness Discoursed: Part 1

"Part of me doesn’t like it when everything works. I don’t think anybody likes it when everything works." ~ John Mayer

But how long?  It's been 3 months since I went out with buddies, as none of them are here.  I've started to miss friends.  I have two of my colleagues who were also my batch mates.  I was never close with them.  In fact, I think we all hated each other back in university, academic rivalry, you know!  One of the biggest realizations I had lately came after that.  You can't have buddies all the time.  You have to learn to live with friends.  You can't be choosy all the time.  You have to accept people the way they are and learn to compromise even if you don't share the like-mindedness.  And quite interestingly, we share a very good relationship now and also have become quite good friends.

Virtual life is all I share with buddies.  It's getting on my nerves.  The time difference is like night versus day (More than 12 hours).  And the schedules!  Last time I had another loneliness attack mixed with anger and sadness, as my best friend (H) forgot one important day I was about to have because he was extremely busy with work and studies.  I'm a good girlfriend, though.  I know he's busy and I never nag about it. 

As the time started to pass, I've had parallel realization on the dimensions of loneliness, for instance, how pathetic it feels when you're down and can't name a single person whom you can call and talk to.  Refreshing Facebook and Gmail to see if there's anything new.  Waiting for at least one friend to come online.  You really have no other choice but to live in your imagination.  After they left, I've kept myself busy with office charms, blogging and chatting through this virtual world and last but not the least, John Mayer's music!  Honestly, for a loner like me, those are more than enough treat!  However, there's a limit.  

I realized, with time/age, the scope of making buddies reduces.  You are involved with more and more formal relationships (of lesser depth) with people of different ages and point of views.  It may not be interesting to cope with them all the time.  You may have to keep a fake smile on your face most of the time.  There are things you won't be able to do even if you want to break the bridges and go for it.  More like a restricted life, or balanced life.  The latter one gives a positive vibe, while the former gives a negative.  But still, you have to live with the paradox!

By now, it may sound that I'm starving for buddies to get rid of the loneliness.  It's not that.  Of course, I miss them.  It would've been great if I at least had someone here.  But the starvation is more for a settlement; in terms of relationship as well as academic/career advancement.  Presuming I'd soon be fed and would be heading towards the settlements I was referring.  But will that end the process of loneliness?

I believe, the answer is no.  I'd be away from my family then.  I'd be away from the life I have now.  The most important issue is quarter life crisis.  By now, we've been depending on our families.  Our decisions have been influenced by them.  But now, it's time to take charge, and by taking charge you have to accept the positives and negatives too.  This is when the void begins.  You can't have it all.  You choose one sector and leave the other as an opportunity cost.  The void continues.  Being responsible and independent bring with them a hell lot of uncertainties that you can't do anything about. 

Professional life, rather I should call it the first step to independent life, teaches you a lot.  It's like the treadmill which is hard to stop and you have to keep going.  It's more like walking alone in a crowd.  And the most interesting part is, which is my personal observation, that every single person in the crowd is alone.  Every one of them has their own loneliness story.  So, in that sense, all the lonely people are crowded together sharing a common part of life!  You're busy.  You have a family.  You have a different world.  Yet, you have emptiness of some sort, leading to loneliness.  We all are dissatisfied souls.  There would always be something that you crave for.  Always creating a void.  Always creating a loneliness of some sort.  You can't run away from it.  You have to learn to live with it. 

The greener grass on the other side is loneliness.  Frustration of not getting what you want is loneliness.  Regret is loneliness.  Trying to cope with the current settings without fully internalising with it is loneliness.  And it's like bad sectors of a hard disk.  With time, some portion of your memory is damaged due to loneliness.  It can't be filled up.  Because certain things can only be filled up with certain special ingredients.  Even if you get better ingredients, you won't be able to fill up the space which requires that special ingredient. 

The process has began.  The bad sectors have started to take place.  Calling them "bad sectors" as a term, not to really label loneliness as bad.  It's a continuous process.  May be this is how we grow.  This is how we become mature.  This is how we learn to keep a balance between certain possibilities and certain losses of life.  You can't look back, neither can you have "it" back.  All you got to do is to keep walking.  But the one thing you can do while being in the process is try to be "conscious" every moment.  Don't let it just pass.  But to realize it being passed.