The Loneliest Place on Earth
The greatest lie of a sick soul is that we are alone in the universe.
The greatest lie of a sick soul is that we are alone in the universe.
I know this lie well. It is the ever-enduring refrain of my own mind.
I’ve tried, time and time again, to convince myself otherwise. To defeat this sorrowful cry that so often fills my heart. I’ve read the motivational books, watched the motivational videos. I’ve meditated, journaled, practiced yoga and dance, and a hundred thousand exercises in joy and peace and mindfulness. And sometimes, I find myself almost convinced. Almost convinced that I have control over my own thoughts and emotions.
And then I fall again.
I’ve faced this struggle for as long as I can remember, but if I had to choose a beginning, I would guess the darkness really began to set in and spread when I was around the age of fourteen. It was the year my parents divorced. Yet, while divorce is surely a traumatizing thing to go through for any child or adult, it wasn’t the divorce itself that devastated my soul so far beyond repair. It was the isolation that followed.
From fourteen to eighteen, I lived alone with my mother, an incredible artist and creative soul who herself suffered from depression, and who treated it with alcohol addiction and isolation. I think it was an unconscious observation that she became so consumed by her disease at that time that she ceased to take any real notice of my life. Indeed, she ceased to be involved whatsoever. She didn’t notice if I came home late from school or hockey practice, or at least she never asked about it. Once I learned to drive, she no longer showed up to my games. Couldn’t even be bothered to come and help me when I, at sixteen, spun out on a wet road and broke the rim on the wheel of my car.
It never occurred to me then, but I can only imagine that these experiences impressed upon me the feelings of invisibility and lack of worth that have since become so familiar. Even now that my years have doubled and I am an adult, those feelings are my constant companions. I’ve had moments, over the years, when I thought that I had defeated them. I thought that I could choose my way out of them, “growth mindset” myself into that elusive state of light and love and joy that seems to come so easily for so many.
Perhaps that is why this place called to me. Japan. A country of such beauty and animation, such expressions of artistry and vibrance. But coming here, I soon realized that this country is the landscape of my soul. All the loneliness I had felt before was, in fact, muted by my connection to a community. I had, despite all my struggles, made real friends. I was connected to people who cared about me. And so, though I struggled so often with that deep soul-ache of depression, still my friends could keep me from sinking too deep, even if they didn’t know it.
But here, that community doesn’t exist. Try as I might to find it, I realize again and again that I am alone. Before, my friends would reach out to me if I had been out of touch for a few days. Now, I might go weeks without seeing anyone, and yet no one bats an eye. Time and again I start to think I’ve found a new group, a new community of people who really care about one another, only to realize that I’m still an outsider. I just can’t shake the feeling that no one cares about me. Or perhaps it’s more the feeling that no one sees me.
The new age of spirituality says that we must create everything first within ourselves, and then in our immediate vicinity, and then those truths will spread to the greater reality of our lives. So I search my soul for a way to create that sense of belonging within. I repeat my mantras, I try to manifest that feeling of love and connectedness within myself. And I think I’m making progress, overall. But the more I explore the passions of my soul, the more starkly I see how different I am from those around me, the more I seem to detach from the world. Could it be that that initial sense of invisibility, of unworthiness, that I created at fourteen has grown too big to be uncreated? Does the nothingness take up so much space that there is no room for me to feel valued?
And yet, the spark of life still exists within me somehow. My mother eventually succumbed to her depression, robbing the world of her art, her exquisite eye for beauty. But I decided at sixteen, five years before her death, that I would not give in. I recognize the lie for what it is. And one day, I will find a way to quiet that voice and let the light shine forth.
