Janey tells me tonight, “I don’t like to be alone,” as I put her into her own bed. In my usual fashion I gave what probably is a too adult answer saying, “It’s okay to be alone.” Even at the age of four I think she is learning the most brutal of life’s lessons. Though full understanding may be years away, I could weep for her and as I write this I can feel the sting of unshed tear in my ever dry eyes.
No matter how much we love or are loved in return we are, in the depth of our very essence, always alone.
I saw a movie or read a book in which there is a scene played out between a young and old woman. The young woman asks the rather cantankerous older woman, “Aren’t you afraid of dying alone?” The response, harsh and simple, “We all die alone.”*
We spend most of our lives trying to fill that hole of alone-ness. We turn to a vast array of addictions, a parade of relationships – sexual and platonic, or depression. An unlucky few try all of them and then some. And still others, by all outward appearances, appear to not have so large an unanswered echo within them. I tend to look at those few lucky souls with a mixture of awe and disbelief.
So tonight I ponder how I will help my child learn to cope with this stark reality of human existence when I, myself, am still trying to come to peace with my own abyss.
*I apologize for my increasingly poor memory. If you recognize the source I reference here please comment so I can give proper credit.
**”When you look into the abyss, the abyss is looking into you.” ~NietzscheBlogger Labels: life, lessons, essence, woman, Nietzsche, souls
 | Recommended Reading: The Bell Jar |
2 comments:
The trick to being alone is to like yourself and to pursue your interests and expand your knowledge base. There is SO much out there in the world to do and to learn, there isn't time for all the things I want to know before I die. People actually can get in the way of that. lol
"Alone" seems to have become a bad thing in society today. "alone" is a state of mind. A person can be alone, and not be lonely. The two needn't have to be a team so speak. Teach your child the things you already know to be true. That the best friend she'll have is herself. That she'll need to learn to lean on others when she is weak, and be a rock for others when she can. That she will learn more about herself when she sits quietly in the "alone-ness".
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