Sometimes this loneliness hits me like a strong wave. It knocks the breath out of me with the sheer force of it. I am gasping, drowning. I know the wave will pass and I will be okay. Tomorrow I will love the ocean again. But in that instant it hits me so hard that all I want to do is curl into a ball. Or hold someone until the wave passes. As always, the only thing holding me in place is myself.
Loneliness is the echo of my screams. Reaching out only to grasp the endless waters. Loneliness is crying, but no one can see because in that moment the tears on my face looks like the waves that had washed me over. And no one stops to see my eyes are not red because of all the water that had gone in, but because of the ones that had flown out. Loneliness is watching my patience run out and bitterness take its place. I want to rant, to let someone know that I am giving up. Loneliness is knowing no one really cares even if I do.
And I know, I can’t be the only one going through this. So many people, perhaps this very second, is getting hit by this same wave. But when I am getting the breath knocked out of my body, I am not thinking about saving the others.
I am not the victim, the white knight, the damsel is distress here. I am just suffering for a moment. Tomorrow it will pass. It always does.
Tonight I am nothing; tomorrow this night will be nothing.
So if you ask me, know this, the thing about waves is it recedes. It goes back, away… away until the ocean swallows it whole. So tomorrow I will pick up the seashells left at its wake. After all, there is beauty to be found even in the tread of pain.
Amar Shobdo 