As I told you yesterday, I'd been feeling lonely since my familiar friend had to leave early the morning before last. The absence following his presence alerted me to how long I've been here already without familiar friends, without anyone ~ aside from, of course, the ephemeral visits of first my mother and then Matthew, and aside from also my brief encounter with Ayva. It has only been almost two weeks since my departure, but that is a long time without familiar faces when you come from a city where the next non-stranger is likely to be just across the street, just around the corner, or just getting off the bus... And for me those common findings were such the norm that I didn't even think anything of them, having grown up in the city for 19 years (The first 5-ish years being in Vancouver). Actually, to me sometimes the unlikeliness of going out without running into a non-stranger became irritating and a nuisance. But how quickly I have realized the loneliness that comes without the non-strangers at every stop, and mainly without the familiar friends to reach when spirits are perhaps flying a little lower than usual. I think yesterday was particularly difficult not only because my familiar friend had recently left but also because it was a Friday night. Don't get me wrong, I'm not the kind of person who has to go out every Friday night - or any night of the week for that matter, but I could almost feel London's energy and excitement growing for the coming weekend, and I didn't feel a part of it. Besides the fact that my every day is about as busy or non-busy as my last (there is currently no bell-curve-like shape to my levels of stress or responsibilities), who would I be celebrating a week's end with, when I know no one well enough?
Well let me let you know I found a solution to the problem of loneliness, perhaps even sadness in general. I must acknowledge and accredit here, though, a very beautiful person in my life who was my counselour throughout some particularly stressful times last year. I'm not sure how she would feel about my advertising her name freely on the internet. So I will just call her M (not because her name begins with an M but because with her first and last names combined, M is the mode of the letters - the most frequently occurring letter, for those not familiar with statistics jargon... although 'frequently occurring' may also be statistics lingo, I'm not sure). Anyhow, she always made me tell her of something feasible, realistic, and concrete that I could and would do for myself to show myself that I was taking care of me and that I was here for me. And maybe some people who read this would be laughing at the idea, but it frickin' works, if you take it seriously, and if you can find what that special something for yourself is at the time. For me last night... I gave myself a pretty fantastic date. We (myself and I) rented a movie, made dinner, bought a piece of chocolate cake for dessert, and drank wine. Deep, dark, red wine from Ontario (BC's tastes better to me, but I am adjusting). The movie was only mediocre. It was "Love in the Time of Cholera," and I've just finished the book a couple of months ago. The movie went all too quickly through important parts, cut out too much, and didn't give me the sense that years and years were passing by, which was critical to the storyline. Furthermore, the main actress who played Fermina hardly seemed to have aged, where as at some points Florentino seemed to have aged too much too soon. But moreover, the beauty of the book was not so much in the storyline itself but in the way Gabriel Grarcía Márquez writes, adds powerful subtleties, and makes you feel as though you are passing through the character's lives, feeling the extent of time and the lovers' emotions - happiness, pain, patience - for yourself. None of that was reflected in the movie. Despite all that, though, I had such a great evening! And by the time I was brushing my teeth and getting ready for bed, the feelings of loneliness weren't even a memory anymore, they had passed entirely.
So there you go, that is the cure to loneliness - company from your own heart.
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