by compound complex 59 Replies latest jw friends
Hi CoCo
no it's not only you!! I can fly from the heights to the depths literally within minutes - almost like someone flips a switch in my head.
We can feel very vulnerable in those low moments - but that's when we need to reach out - what irony! You want to run and hide away but you need to stay put and reach for support.
Bless you, Sad-no-more-emo!
Reach out and touch someone....................
Love,
CoCo L'Heureux
Yes, I am fine ... really. I appreciate your kind thoughts and genuine concern. Could I have made it otherwise?
CoCo
It's very quiet here tonight innit?
Perchance everyone is out Christmas shopping?
Yes, Emo, you are probably correct, though here in the Golden State it is only a bit past 2:00 p.m.
Popcorn?
Sorry, wrong thread!
CoCo Pops
I just had a packet for my supper! (nearly 10.15pm here)
Please excuse me for saying so, CoCo, but with your every post I feel increasing affection for you. Your soul seems to me a true star that touches this board with gentle grace. Whenever you are alone, my wish is that you will feel from your own presence what we feel from it when you are here. May you find something there that never fades!
I spent much of my earlier life alone, whether with others or not, and content with my own company... prefering it, actually. So much less complicated. But now I am not so content. I am often restless and frustrated. I know how to make acquaintances but am at a bit of a loss when it comes to actual friends. I do not know how to engage or remain engaged. Maybe I don't want it bad enough to do whatever it is that requires of me. I don't know.
I have two friends, one a female I rarely see as she is very busy and prefers different entertainment and environment than I, but we can always count on each other. The other is a Viet Nam vet who lives in an alternate reality. I don't see him very often either, but my soul treasures his, and when we are together there is peace.
And then there is my daughter, the sweetest friend there is, but a child, and sometimes I crave adult company and there is none. So I walk by the river with my camera and that usually helps me feel less lonely and depressed.
~Merry
It's just after 4 pm here - I am sure everyone is busy for the Holidays... I am not. I am all alone, my family 2000 miles away. Been alone for 2 and a half years, in a foreign country were I am only about 30% fluent, talk about isolation! It can get loney, but truthfully, the lonliest I have ever been in my life was when I was married to my last husband. He cured me of needing a man in my life. Not to say I wouldn't love to have a great relationship, but I am not actively seeking one.
I am leaving tomorrow for a 2 week or so road trip to parts of Mexico I have never seen, by myself! LOL, this is my first vacation alone in my life, and I am looking forward to it, seeings new places and meeting new people.
I enjoy my time alone, I really go. I go sit in the sand and watch the tides -
Sitting on the dock of the bay -
watching the tide roll away -
sitting on the dock of the bay -
wasting time.....
.that's me. Amazing how much peace I get from the ocean. I spend my days listening to Blues music or classic Rock over the internet and playing on line, or walking through town. Or sitting on the beach after I do my little bit of work I need to do daily. I, also, find that if I DO get lonely, I can just go to a bar or a cafe and strike up consversation and meet some interesting people. It is not too hard to do, somewhat against my nature, but I force myself. Like I did in door-to-door service. If I can knock on a strangers door and preach to them as a child, I can certainly talk to a stranger about the weather!
Our lives are so different than just 50-75 years ago. People had families and often they lived near each other and when grandma and grandpa got too old they moved in with one of the family. Your parents taught you the needed skills to survive in the world and you had aunts and uncles helped out. A family member has surgery- a family member comes to live and take care of that person. American culture encourages families to not stay near each- other they often live thousands of miles apart. grandparents often go to a retirement home and sometimes you hardly know your extended family. We live in cites and apartments instead of small towns.Seldom do you see multi-generational families living together- something common in other lands.
Many people hardly know their neighbors- something that probably would not have happened 50 yrs ago. Your mother taught you to sew- now we take a class. I'm sure most have noticed how the Asian and Mexican culture are so different. they live together often - many of them in one household . I once was told by a person from the Philippines that without family you could easily end up on the street starving.
American culture has changed a lot from just 50 years ago. we have few Mayberry's USA anymore.
When i was young i loved the company of many people. My house was more or less Grand central station. It did not bother me at all. Now I feel differently but I miss my old self.
I so agree that first a person has to come to be at peace with themselves.
Dear Merry,
I have a very dear friend who is a Magdalene, and she, like you is a sweet and gentle soul. Since our arduous and oft uncertain but eventual surfacing the Watchtower maelstrom of confusion, we are cast on shore alive but dead, as it were. Our connections with others, however cherished those individuals might be, are imperfect at best. Judith Viorst, in her highly-acclaimed and eminently readable NECESSARY LOSSES, declares that we have all manner of friend-types, but precious few are those whom we'd ever allow to see us in our ratty bathrobe, hair in curlers, et cetera (for the ladies, I presume!). Few ever become our most intimate confidants.
Your restive spirit is part of the human condition but all the more so, IMHO, because we here are traveling between two lands. We have left a religious faith whose declaration of an answer for every question has neither satisfied our minds nor assuaged our troubled hearts. We continue to seek, but we're out of that supposed protective closure - the ark - and it's scary.
Being of like mind - kindred spirits in our universal dwelling - is a bond that is understood and felt instantly the moment our spiritual sibling speaks (or writes). I am humbled and moved by your responsiveness and magnanimity. Was it to no purpose that I put up a six-month-old thread?
Gratefully,
CoCo
