Loneliness and solitude, and the thin border that separates the two –

I find myself fluctuating between loneliness and solitude.

In some ways, I’ve always craved the margin of silence after what seemed like an endless season of turbulence. Sometimes, the silence allows me to breathe, and the kind of exhale is one that’s at peace. I haven’t had that in quite a while. But other times, the silence is the only thing I feel, to the point that it’s suffocating and isolating. When I find myself in the in-betweens, restlessness takes over and there’s nothing more I crave than certainty of what’s to come. But the margin of silence is inescapable and necessary. It’s the only way to learn how to block out the background noise and listen to the voices that actually matter.

I know that bearing the moments of loneliness instead of forcing pieces that don’t quite fit will eventually lead me to experience the solitude I need to take me where I need to go. Reminding myself this is the only way I know how to move forward, especially when waters are still and I don’t know what direction to go.

This is not a hopeful nor desolate note, if anything, this writing is a way to cope with the tiring passage of finding myself switching between places of loneliness and solitude, sometimes even at the same time. I know it’s foolish to think I can ever be in the state of constant peace, but maybe there’s a way to change my mindset, and view the overwhelming feelings of emptiness into potential opportunties to daydream about places I’ve yet to see and faces I have yet to know. Though the gap is far and wide of where I am and where I am meant to be, I think I can start preparing myself for the big leap with the words of wisdom that,

not knowing what will happen next also means that anything could

I’m still trying to learn the many forms that intimacy takes and unlearn the usual shape of romantic love it so often clings to. Absence doesn’t need to be filled by a single person or a notion of having “the one”. This margin of silence is a transitory period, and I hope it leads me to a place I can better appreciate the multitudes of love and beauty. And maybe, finally relinquishing the ideas of what should’ve been, can finally open me up to the endless possibilities of what can finally be.

I was never one to stubbornly hold on to one worldview anyway. :)