Choosing Lonely

This morning I decided I wanted to go to a church where I didn't know anyone so that I could have a quiet service left alone with my own thoughts. Why is it that I can never seem to manage a simple task like that? I ended up at the Presbyterian church in Richmondhill where people know me. Lesson for finding a church people don't know you: If you have sung there, performed there, participated in a service, or have friends who might be home from university, it's probably not a place you will go without being recognized. The really nice thing about this Sunday was that I wasn't annoyed with people recognizing me. And I got to meet a very nice woman who sat down beside me and talked. It seems that no matter how hard we attempt to isolate ourselves at times, it just doesn't work.

So many people complain about being lonely in society. I know that I have on occassion when I feel that there is no one else around. The interesting part about this is how often we choose loneliness as opposed to reaching out. We don't always realize or recognize what we are doing, but we do. We isolate ourselves when we choose to shut our doors to each other, when we don't smile at someone on the street. We isolate when we don't pick up the phone to call someone, or let the answering machine answer for us. We choose to be lonely and then we complain about it. Maybe that makes it more manageable for us to place the blame else where as opposed to looking at ourselves for the answer. We make the choice to be lonely and then we forget how to fix it.

Once we have made the choice to be lonely, we think it's so hard to go back to not being lonely. We fear that when we open ourselves up to feeling and caring that it will be hard. And it is. It is hard to let people into your life and feel as though you have lost all concept of personal time and space. And sometimes that happen. But when we remember what it feels like to be so heart achingly lonely then it is entirely worth it.

At the same time, somedays we need to choose to lonely. We need to choose to have time and space back to ourselves to think and remember who we are. In making the choice to be alone, we allow ourselves to regenerate. We weren't built to stay that way forever though. We need people in our lives, the people who love us and the ones that hate us. No man is an island and we can't act like that. Who we are makes a difference. It effects those around us, whether we want it to or not and we don't get to avoid that reality.