Not everyone is lucky enough in life to meet their prince or princess; to get their fairy-tale ending, or even beginning. And a life filled with loneliness and yearning can be one of the most painful, empty and isolating ways to be.
Research shows the importance of human-to-human touch like that only experienced in intimate relationships. Both the physical and emotional development of babies who aren’t held and touched enough is stunted. Adults, deprived of physical touch can develop depression … without intimate or affectionate touch and connection, the world can be a very lonely place. We all need affection and loving touch.
I’ve counselled a number of people over the years struggling with loneliness and the heartache of a life lived alone. Some people I’ve worked with have maybe had brief relationships which haven’t developed, others have maybe yearned for men / women who didn’t want them, and others have simply never experienced a relationship in any form. I’ve counselled women in their late forties, fifties and sixties, who, have not only missed out on the experience of love, but as a result have also lost the opportunity to become a mother. And to sit with someone in the full depth of their regret, questioning and heartache can be particularly moving and challenging.
Why? … Clients question what was / is it about me that’s prevented love coming into my life? What did I do wrong? Why has no one wanted to love me? What’s so wrong with me that no one’s wanted to love me? … And these are questions which simply can’t be answered. But these are also questions which leave the individual questioning their own self worth and value. They’ve watched everyone else around them fall in love, watched other people have successions of relationships maybe, and yet they’re still on their own … and it seems that they can’t help but think that it must be something they’re doing wrong. There must be something wrong with them that no one wants to love them.
Watching other people happy in relationships, sharing loving gestures, looks & touches can be painful for those people on their own. Some people prefer a life alone, and that’s fine, but for those who yearn for deep connection with another human being watching the intimate happiness of others can cut to the core. A kind of envy; not jealous of the couple in love, but a yearning to have their own special someone in their life. Watching other people is a reminder of everything they don’t have; a mirror of their loneliness and empty heartache.
The lonely person will often appear to be busy, filling their life doing things an attempt to fill the void inside. But no matter how much ‘stuff’ people are engaging in, filling their life with, none of that can take away the yearning inside. At times, the busyness, just emphasises the emptiness when the individual pauses and realises that they’re still on their own. No matter how significant the achievement in the external world, it can’t compensate for the empty hole at the core of their internal world.
Love is at the heart of human life, and to feel that no one has ever wanted to love you, or that the person you love no longer loves you is a dagger right in the heart of the soul …
As I was writing this, a song of mine, which I wrote many, many years ago came to mind … its lyrics describe the loneliness experienced after a love affair ends…
Table Set For Two
(© Sharon Cox, Nov 1992)
I can hear my beating heart,
Cutting through the silence.
What can I do to ease the pain that comes
From the tears that fall in defiance.
If somebody new knocked upon my door,
Would I be free to let them inside?
Why does it feel that I’m trapped within a grave;
Tell me, how can I be saved?
Now the time is getting late,
I sit abandoned at the table.
I long for someone to hold me in his arms,
Like an infant in a cradle.
I stare at the table; still set for two,
And watch the candle flame grow dim.
Just like the fire, my dreams went up in smoke;
Now, they haunt me like a ghost.
This world was made for partners in crime,
Everywhere’s a table set for two.
I don’t know how I will survive;
I’m lonely at this table set for two.
See the plates; they’re empty now.
Just like the vacant hole that fills me.
I don’t know if I’ll ever love again,
Or even if I’ll want to.
All my life, love’s brought only pain,
Tell me why it’s been so cruel.
Maybe it’s me, but I don’t understand,
Perhaps, I’ve just been a fool.
You express one of our greatest dilemmas ... that we can want to feel strong and complete in our own right ... but to realise it, to feel that it IS enough, to simply be fulfilled by loving yourself ... can feel so painfully elusive for many of us.
ReplyDeleteSometimes i envy those that do not ache for that, see them as some kind of emotional hermaphrodite!
Yes, now this feeling too well, and i think you have more courage than i to express it so completely. Maybe i will try now though!