Coming home from work yesterday, the night seemed like it was going to be eventful. A few friends had gotten in touch proposing to do different things. I wasn’t sure where I was going but as I got home, one cancellation after another came through and I found myself doing nothing. I was happy about it in a sense because after all, I did come here with the intention to relax a bit and get away from the constantly-have-to-be-doing-something mode I so frequently find myself caught in.
I remembered a batch of bootleg DVDs that I bought from a Chinese lady who knocked on my door a few days ago. I ended up watching a film called Grey Matters. It’s another coming of age story about a brother and sister who fall in love with the same woman. I thought it was too stereotypical and I started using my forward button a little bit. I did, that is, until at one point the movie changed tone. As the sister came out to the brother and confessed about her crush, I put down the remote control and paid a little more attention. After a while there was a scene where they are stuck in an elevator and she’s coming out again. Here is where the weird stuff started to happen. As I was watching, I was thinking LAME, not again, etcetera but I discovered that I was actually choking up. I was stopping myself from crying. I was undeniably denying myself a feeling.
To watch the scene: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9l6Kh0kILgM
What made me choke up? The girl was telling her brother about her feelings about being gay. She didn’t feel normal, she did feel apologetic for who she was, and she did feel lonely. Lonely. Lonely because she would never be able to walk down the street holding hands with her partner without the rest of the world giving them a look, because she may never have the wedding that she once dreamed of, because she may never have children, and, one day when she dies, because people will never give respect to her grieving lover as much as if she were her husband.
Lonely. The girl had friends, a good job, a loving brother, and she was lonely.
For the past few weeks I have been in Dubai. I moved here from my city where I was always surrounded by people, friends and family, colleagues and neighbors and, and, and… I came here with the intention of slowing down my social life. But, I felt a little shame somewhere when someone asked what did you do last night and I answered nothing. Here I am this mature 40-year-old well-adjusted man embarrassed by the simple fact that I stayed home the night before. I didn’t want to go out, but a small part of me was embarrassed that I didn’t. I dove deeper into this feeling to understand why. It wasn’t because I like the image of being a man with a busy social calendar and it wasn’t because I wanted to go out and didn’t. It was because I am so used to being surrounded by people that I developed an attachment to it. I thought about it some more and I discovered that at the very core of this feeling was the feeling that, as a gay man, I am lonely. I’m in a relationship with a man that I love but that didn’t get rid of that feeling. I have friends and colleagues and spiritual friends and teachers. I’m always involved in one project or another, I travel a lot, and I seriously barely have time to do anything. But there it is again, when I get home at night, I get that feeling that I‘m alone.
Are all gay people lonely? I look around me and I can’t help but feel that we are. Most of us, though, work hard on maintaining the busy agenda look. Party here, dinner there, work engagements everywhere. All in vain effort to beat that little feeling hiding at the bottom right corner of our rib cage that we’re unaware of, which bites us in the ass, and not where it feels nice, every time we find ourselves alone at home or with no where to go or nothing to do. Did we come out of the gay closet only to enter the lonely closet?
Truth is, I may be more aware of it than the average gay person because I ‘discovered’ who I was late in life. I didn’t have time to push those feelings down as they appeared suddenly and without warning. I unconsciously worked hard at maintaining the ‘normalcy’ of my life. It’s normal, I’m normal, and nothing has really changed, I maintained. Nothing changes when you set your life up in a good way. I have good friends and my family seems to be coping, though not too well, but it’s still coping. I forgot to face those feelings that I have lost the privilege of being one of the people. I had stepped out of the mass. I left the big circle and entered a little one on the side. I lost the right to not feel different. This may sound romantic and heroic, but how can it be when it is not by choice?
So here it is, the Apothecary of Thought’s response to the concern:
Recognition. It’s the mother of all cures.
To beat that loneliness, I have at times been addicted to friends, to clubs, to work, to substances of various levels of danger. I ate without restraint. I went out and got sick. I bought clothes that I didn’t like. I spent endless hours at the gym. And I did all those things for the wrong reasons. I thought they would beat the loneliness. But they can’t. The only thing that can is seeing and admitting and accepting those feelings that we all share. I have to own the fact that from the beginning we are alone. I am not just referring to gay people. Everyone has that feeling. I, as a human being, am alone. We all go through the bigger journey alone. That is how we beat the loneliness. By recognizing what we are all in this together.
No one is alone in feeling alone.
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7 comments:
I believe that we are all lonely in a collective, we are different enitities, however we are connected on a diiferent level.
Going to bed at night, u are alone, around people u are alone,if anything it is preservation of one'sown identity, from the fear of being violated, we are never completely open, we like to keep somethings aside, a thought an idea, a fantasy, or even an activity.
This need for separation is one form of attachement, that we have to deal with our feelings.
Looking deep inside, u will find that there is a void in all of us, not the dramtic void, but the void that connects all of us together, space, emptiness.
a good void...
great thoughts! great concerns and all legitimate.
it is not because one is "different", or "not normal", or whatever the case is that we feel lonely. it is a matter of what we got used to growing up. there are many people who can only function in their loneliness and excel at it. Are they then "abnormal" for being "not lonely", No!
The feeling you described is very true and can be crushing... and the neat thing is that we are talking about it, it will not change the fact, it just makes us feel better....
It's that we limit ourselves by falling victim to this "identiy" or image that causes most of our lonliness, BUT ONE CAN BE ALONE WITHOUT BEING LONELY. The Great Canadian Poet and Songwriter, Leonard Cohen sang a song from his album, The Future, form the song entitled, Waiting for the Miracle, "...Let's to be alone together. Let's see if we are that strong." I'm certain the Great Milarepa may have contemplated this very issue alone in his cave all those may years.
Aloneness is to be contemplated and meditated upon. I work with the dieing every day and death is the one thing they do completely and totaly alone. It doesn't matter how many people surround the dieing, they still must make the final jouney alone. I can try to guide them, but I can't walk through the bardo with them.
It is good you contemplate these matters.
How can we all share in loneliness? Is that really possible? Are we not all on this earth being together? Have I asked too many questions? :-)
I must say that, during the past months, I’ve had a constant (to the point of annoyance) thinking about finding a companion to share my life…is that loneliness?
I do fall within a "little circle" due to my sexuality...but I don't believe that the little circles of minority have a link to the L word.
“No one is alone in feeling alone”? How about “everyone is together in being”?...we are human beings, after all.
For what it is worth...thanks for the opportunity to share.
Into The Wild
that really touched me.
though i'm not sure the lonliness your are describing has to do with sexual identity. that probably makes it harder. but i think what you are describing goes deeper.
isn't it to some extent the (thinking) human condition? not that that helps.
aunti kaka - amen. may we transform the lonliness we have to aloneness.
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