Lessons in Loneliness

If you’re like me in any way, you thrive on connection. That sense of belonging, of sharing the inside joke or seeing someone’s eyes light up when they see you, the hum of energy in a crowd or the chuckle to yourself at reading a loved one’s silly text. The community to support you when all else around you doesn’t make sense. Even the most introverted person needs connection, though it could look differently than an extrovert like me. Even if your village is small, it is still necessary.

It makes it all the more devastating then, when barriers to that community pop up, often jarringly so. And then once the first barrier appears, then they become relentless. For me, it was in my early twenties. That age when the first of my friends and family members my age were getting married, with babies following within the year or so. Suddenly, it was so hard to feel included in a group that I knew I would never fully be a part of. Conversations and pictures would always circle back to babies and pregnancies, swapping stories of morning sickness or babies kicking or finding a daycare. And what could I bring to that? My body would never bear the marks characteristic of this exclusive club. I would never rush to my husband with a positive pregnancy test in hand. Instead of being in the same town as these people I’ve known for years, they were still cozy in their homes and I was on the tip of an icy mountain, feeling and hearing nothing but the cold wind raging against me. 

I hated being on the mountain for so long, especially when I would feel like I was walking down the path toward the village, even chatting with companions that I could trust along the way and who would occasionally stay for a time before going back to the town. Sometimes, I would get a temporary stay, but then a family member who knew better would send me an unsolicited pregnancy or birth announcement, or the priest would only bless mothers and fathers at a Mass, and I was promptly reminded that my home was no longer in the town, but back in the frozen loneliness of the mountain. 

But during my stays on the mountain, things would change. Once in a while, a traveler, also driven to the wilderness, would stay and rest. Our times together would be brief, but in their eyes I saw the same pain, the same desire for acceptance, and after they rested with me on the mountain we shared, we would part ways, reminded that others were on their own mountains. So began a network of mountain communities, determined to check in with me and I with them. Then, there was an amazing man who, to my complete consternation, decided to also make his home with me on the mountain. But my love and the other companions could never be there all the time, could never fully understand my isolation on the mountain. So when it was my time alone, the grief would hurt more and more, a reminder of the life I could never have. And it was then that the storms raged harder, and it was my heart that felt frostbitten the most. 

Desperate for connection, I would rage against God just as hard as the winds and emotions would rage against and inside me. If no one could understand me, then God at least had to hear what I had to say. And listen God did, until I collapsed with a tear soaked face and shaking body. Then, and only then, would the winds still, would the cold disperse, replaced instead by a warmth, an understanding unlike any other. A Love that needed me to quiet myself, to reach out and listen, to trust. To give Love my anguish while also acknowledging the sacrifice He went through.  Having to do those things, for me at least, often felt impossible, but I was now being forced to try. 

Then the warmth, that presence, would sit with me on the peak, saying everything without a word uttered. And slowly, by sitting on the mountain, by being alone with God, with Love, I could begin to see the reason why I was up there. I was there to hold the hearts that were also scarred with wounds I could understand more than anyone else they knew. To remind myself of the fact that Love is not in the fires or the winds, but in the quietness, the surrender. And that the time on the mountain is necessary to remember that we are not in control, though we may cling to it. But also it was a reminder that I could not live on the mountain alone, and that there was a community that loved me, even if they could not go up this mountain with me. 

Soon, the winds would die down, and the view from the mountain could actually be comforting. And these days, even though my home is in the village, nothing is perfect, and I am still forced to flee to the mountain, reminded of the ways I will be uncomfortably uncommon among my fellow commoners. But now, there are times I seek out the mountain, to seek out Love, finding solace in the fact that Love alone can comfort in the deep loneliness I can still feel from time to time. Then I can go back to the village, rested and content that I do have my own purpose, even if it will take time to accept and know what that role will be. 

I can never promise that the winds won’t blow, or that your own time on the mountain will be over soon. What I can promise is that in the loneliness, in the deafening howl of the storms or the quakes of the earth, there is still Love. A still, small voice that outlasts the noise, the doubts, the rumbles of the earth and our life. That we simply have to still ourselves on the mountain for the voice to be heard. And may that voice, and the voices of those in the village and the fellow mountain travelers, remind us of the community around us. The lessons on the mountain are hard, but they are also the ones that I cherish the most.

May God watch over each step of your journey, and may you feel Love in the village and on the mountain.