an exit to loneliness

i took this picture while in downtown Denver yesterday. i like this picture a lot because it says a lot about life. it's the way life feels sometimes - like we are only allowed an exit, but never an entry. we are on the outside looking in. We are struggling to find identity, existence, meaning. ultimately. we are lonely. reading shawn's blog yesterday and came across his version of lonely - it fits the picture well.



Lonely. I’ve felt a lot of that this past year and a half. I’ve felt a lot of that my whole life, really...I have a hard time receiving love from others. It doesn’t seem to matter if it is from God, from my friends, from my family. I don’t quite know why this is. I know I’ve had a hard time at it my entire life – my mother loves to tell a story about the time, when I was only six or so, I asked her how she could love me. I just didn’t get it. I guess I must still not really get it.

The funny thing is I know people really do love me. And not just a few people, either. I know my whole family loves me, and I know how rare and incredible a thing that is. I know dozens of people who love me; they prove it time and time again... I know I have felt what it is to be loved, to be loved completely, without reservation even while being known completely. I have known deep and enduring friendships, many of them, which I would not have thought possible several years ago. I have known and felt incredible intimacy.

But it never sticks...I don’t get it. I don’t know why I have to remind myself I am loved; why I have to make myself feel it again and again. I know it – I never doubt it for a second. But I can’t hold on to the feeling, and soon I feel alone again, as though I had been forgotten. I feel abandoned. It’s ridiculous, but knowing that hasn’t stopped it yet. It feels like I’m trying to hold water in my hands, but I can’t keep my fingers closed. It all keeps leaking out.

lonely.