Space of Loneliness

When the mind settles the need to reach for something lessens. In the process the space of loneliness disappears and it’s simply because an “I” story of loneliness isn’t being created…

The space of loneliness appears to get wider as one ages. It doesn’t really, but what happens is there are just less distractions so “I” takes more of a hold. The natural process of life seems to be to stay busy trying to figure things out and regardless of what exactly the figuring out manifest as it certainly creates lots of distractions. There are periods between the busyness where a person has some idle time and probably feels the space of loneliness. It doesn’t usually last very long because the busyness of trying to figure out life returns. This busyness last most of one’s life, but there does come a time that the natural process of being busy lessens. At this stage many people experience a loneliness that hasn’t been noticed before and it will either be addressed by looking inward or ignored by getting busy again trying to figure out how to fill the loneliness.

Eventually the busyness will end for whatever reason, unfortunately for most people without the busyness the space of loneliness rears its ugly head. Many elderly people struggle to fill this space, but it’s difficult because there just isn’t a lot going on. Kids are grown, retirement, house paid off, more time behind you than what’s left, and the list goes on. I was this way for many years using distraction after distraction. There were very brief periods of not needing to reach, but these periods were far a few in between. That is until twelve years ago when I hit an emotional bottom. I began sitting and looking inward which allowed me to see the distractions of my “I” needing to attach to a story. As I sat my mind settled and thus the “I” needing to reach for something lessened. In the process the space of loneliness disappeared and it was simply because an “I” story of a loneliness wasn’t being created…