As I have come into middle age I have begun to realize certain baseline traits in myself which were largely obscure to me earlier in life. This phenomenon, of course, is not newsworthy to most anyone who has reached middle age.
One of the traits I have identified is a mood of soul I'll call loneliness.
I might also call it "orienting towards being by myself". It is a mood of soul which my higher self effectively neutralizes by doing things that are good for me. Like hanging out with my family. Like calling an old friend. Like inviting a friend over for dinner.
My higher self is working on giving me a good and satisfying social life. My lower self would rather be by itself, spinning around and doing meaningless things that are not connected with my purpose in life.
If you've read my blog you'll know that I am married to a fabulous wife and have two amazing step-daughters. I am very happy in my family and feel a great deal of fortune on a regular basis for the fact in my life of my family. They are at the cornerstone of what I find satisfying and enjoyable. My wife and I have a wonderful and close relationship. We are soul-mates and deeply enjoy the time we spend together.
In other words, I do not lack for deep soul connection. For this I feel tremendous gratitude.
And yet, there is a real loneliness that emerges in me.
It's a feeling like I am out on my own, away from everyone else, and that other people are far away. My personality can interact with other people in a perfectly jovial way, while at the same time some important part of me is standing way back. My higher self is back behind me and up from me. What does that feel like to the person I'm talking with? If I am so far "back", what part of me are they meeting and interacting with? What fills the space between "me standing far back" and the person?
I can see my loneliness in terms of my friendships. My connections with friends have become somewhat tenuous over the past several years. It's been difficult for me to make new friends and I am more standoffish than I used to be.
It seems to me that part of it is due to the "hidden" facts of my biography looming steadily larger for me in recent years. Until now, I haven't felt comfortable sharing aspects of my upbringing that involve mental illness, having been sexually assaulted as a child, alcoholism and suicide. Because I have associated those parts of my history with my feeling shame, there is a big part of my personal story which has always been hidden.
Often I feel like I am only sharing a small part of myself with others, even those with whom I would like to become better friends with. It's like I'm standing inside the threshold of a shed, peeking through the door. There's something in the shed which is bad and shameful, and I don't want others to see it. So I try to interact with them by smiling while I have this little dance with the door of the shed which I try to make seem as normal as possible.
In other words it's hard for me to navigate becoming friends with someone. I present pretty well and can chat someone up. I can be superficially friendly and engaging. But who wants to be friends with some guy who is standing in a shed and doesn't come out of it?
On the other end of the spectrum I have a deep and intimate bond with my wife. But there's not a lot in between those two spots on the continuum.
The end result of all this is that I find it exceedingly difficult to cultivate friendships in the "middle level"; where the person is more than an acquaintance but not one's "soul-mate". This leaves me feeling pretty lonely.
I believe that a big part of my loneliness has to do with the time I spent by myself. I was an only child. I learned how to be ok by myself. I estimate that on average I spent at least ten hours per week alone by myself in my house, starting when I was seven years old. As a child I developed a certain baseline of being by myself.
There's also the primary model angle. My dad was a pretty lonely guy. I think he had a few friends, but a big part of their connection seemed to be drinking and smoking pot. My picture of his life between the time when I last saw him and his death is one of a person with few social connections. He lived in the kingdom of alcohol, which apparently made connections with family and friends seem unnecessary, at least until he was sober again.
My mom seems in some ways very sociable, but she too has a lonely streak. She has few close friends and is not very close to her family either, though it might be quite difficult for her to acknowledge that fact. She feels close to me and in many ways I feel the same way to her. But I also feel very conflicted inwardly when I'm around her, and clearly need to work out some issues before I could honestly say that she and I have a strong connection. The person I was closest to in my family of origin was my aunt, who passed away eight months ago..
Another piece is having been molested over several months when I was six years old. This has made it very difficult for me to have conscious control over what I communicate sexually. My boundaries were breached at a formative time. I have made progress in recovery from that trauma but it's a long haul.
So I guess you could say that I've been raised to have something of a lonely streak.
Having a primary model being a lonely guy, feeling ashamed of my family history, being an only child, having been molested, spending a lot of time by myself as a child. These are all factors that lead me towards feelings of loneliness in my baseline personality.
I have in my life people who won't allow me to become the lonely guy those factors would conspire to have me be.
I am very lucky.
Your comments are welcome.
Warmly, Ben
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