If you know - YOU KNOW

Loneliness cannot be compared any more than comparing apples to oranges
- they are both round, they are both fruits, they both contain Vitamin C, they can both be eaten, they can both be made into juice and drank. They can even weigh about the same.
- one is not better than the other. Except to a personal preference and taste.
- both are good for you, but if you live only on either, it will make you sick.

Loneliness cannot be compared in lives - except with the understanding that no one knows another’s loneliness.
- loneliness weighs heavy upon each one.
- each one has a different way to cope and endure.
- what works for one, may (probably won’t) work for another.
- there is a deep loneliness that doesn’t go away by keeping busy, or by being around people.
- unless loneliness is your companion, you can have compassion and kindness, but the understanding is lacking depth.

There is a bitterness in realizing you are not alone in dealing with loneliness - because a lonely heart does not want anyone else to know from experience what this feels like.
And yet, there is also a weird sense of sweetness - just in knowing that you are not the only one going thru this, you are not the only one enduring these thoughts and emotions.
There is guilt when you have those moments of sweetness - because you do care, and you don’t want others to know.
There is a heaviness of keeping yourself, and your loneliness, from being a pain to someone else. Never wanting to make others feel guilty, never wanting to be a burden or a bother to someone.
There is a difference in being alone, in being lonely, and in knowing loneliness.

I have often been alone in these 62 years of life.
- when the kids were in school, or at a friend’s house, with a family member, or when they grew up and began their own families.
- when Rick was at work, or the times when he would go for a bike ride alone to think.
- alone in a room of the house, while Rick was in the bathtub soaking, or when he was in the bed asleep.
- alone in the house growing up when daddy would be at work, and momma was out in the garden pulling weeds.
- alone because no one was right there with me.

I have been lonely in these 62 years of life.
- when Rick was at work and I was missing him.
- when the kids were away - at school, with a friend, with family
- when the kids grew up and moved away
- after spending quality time with a friend or a family member, and then we took leave of one another
- lonely because in that moment I felt someone’s absence - due to work, life, or death.

I never knew loneliness until loneliness was all I knew.
- when Rick died. That immediate emptiness of his presence.
- when there is no one to say “good morning” or “good night”
- when no one is there to help keep your memories
- when no matter what you do there is an ache inside to share with someone
- when there is no witness to your life.

To hear others say :
- “Find something to do!”
- “Get out and go somewhere!”
- “Get involved!”
- “Create memories!”
- “You are never alone, because God is always by your side!”
- “Read your Bible!”
With a hundred more words and platitudes -
Doesn’t help.

Honestly, it adds a heaping amount of guilt on top of the loneliness -
- because what this is basically saying?
*It’s my fault for knowing loneliness.
*I haven’t done enough.
*I don’t have to know loneliness, unless I choose it.

If you know loneliness - You have tried, and done, just about all of them.
And still, the loneliness remains.

Loneliness is soul-deep.

Being alone can be cured by being with someone.
Being lonely can be cured by being with someone.

Loneliness - it’s a way of life.
It has to be accepted in order to be dealt with.
There is a bitter surrender to it, that leads to a sweeter existence with it.

If you know loneliness as your companion - my heart cries out for you.
Reaching thru cyber space to give you a ((( HUG of epic proportions ))) - not the same I know.
May there come a peace in the loneliness that somehow makes you smile.