For the first time in many years, I was alone on Christmas Eve. It was difficult and made me feel sad, aren’t we supposed to be with others on the holiday? I spent some of the time pondering aloneness. Why do we feel it, what is it and is it OK to feel alone?
In a way, we are all alone, and that just is. When you get down to the root of it we are alone, but yet we aren’t alone. I say this because when it comes down to it, we are only responsible to ourselves, we can change nothing but ourselves. But yet this wonderful thing we call “life” wouldn’t be what it is without others.
Being with these thoughts and feelings all day left me in an interesting place. I was chatting with a friend later in the day and told him of my aloneness. He invited me over. I respectfully declined as I didn’t want to drive that far and had sort of become one with my aloneness. There was more to examine.
There were several things that contributed to my aloneness. My 2 sons were with their mother, my girlfriend was with her son, some of my closest friends don’t live nearby. This all left me feeling alone and distraught.
Around 7 pm I decided to go for a walk. I went along my usual walking route. The streets were silent, homes were filled with people, yards with twinkling lights, I walked alone in the cold evening.
As I walked along 6th Ave I saw a woman in an alcove, she was alone and eating food from a paper plate. As I passed, I smiled at her, she looked up and had tears in her eyes. I kept on going, thinking now about how she was alone, how she sat there on the cold cement trying to stay out of the rain.
I continued walking for a mile or 2 and was starting to get chilled, so I turned around and walked back the other way. As I approached the section of the street where the woman was huddled in the storefront I wondered, does she have a place to stay? Why is she alone? What is her story?
As I passed her I stopped and knelt down and asked: “Are you OK?”. She shook her head and looked up at me. I moved across from her and sat down on the cold concrete. And she started to talk, she told me of her trials and tribulations, she told me about her family and her life on the street. She told me how she hadn’t seen her kids in 7 years, about her health problems, and her rocky relationship status.
For the next hour, I sat and listened, listening to her unwind her story, I could clearly see in a way how she and I were experiencing the same Christmas Eve. But yet here we were neither of us were alone now. She told me about her struggles with depression, drug use, and suicide. How was her situation different from where I had sat so many years ago?
She wasn’t different from what I was. We each had trials and tribulations, though she was still stuck in hers.
I could see myself in her.
After listening to her for an hour, it was getting late, I started to get up and excuse myself. I asked her what her name was she said “Mary”, She asked me mine and I introduced myself. I remember thinking what can I do to help her? What does she need?
As I stood there I said, ” Mary, remember the most important thing you can do is care for you.” She looked up and smiled, she really smiled.
Sometimes our aloneness is a gift. A gift to share with others.