A Mirror Not Quite Firmly Fastened

I am learning how to be lonely. It is a difficult process, and for the most part I've never really had to go through it before.

Not to say that spending so much time alone is a bad thing; on the contrary, I've been teaching myself to rely on myself for amusement, support, and strength. If I can't enjoy being by myself, I'll never enjoy being with others.

But it's strange, living alone, sleeping alone, spending my afternoons alone. My weekends. And, for the first time in my life, I'm lonely-- and it's not the panicked, spontaneous bursts of "loneliness" I'd experience when left on my own for a few hours back when I was living with or dating someone. It's a quieter, deeper and more chronic ache... like that feeling you get at the base of your skull right before you know a big headache is about to hit.

I'm reading a lot, cleaning. Cooking. Taking walks. Listening to music, writing, working out at the gym. Most of all and behind all of that, however, I have a sense that I'm waiting for something. I can't really say what it is. It's a nagging feeling somewhere in the back of my brain that something will come through my door and change my life. Like I'm teetering on the edge of some giant alteration: security of habit is missing now, and I am on my own.

I want to be fascinating. The great narcissist in me rears its ugly head and claims my right to be worshiped, but other than instant gratification I see no merit in the idea; it is not genuine to be loved in such a way. But I am unsatisfied with anything less. If someone were to find me fascinating, to be interested in all aspects of me, to show it on a regular basis (important) --but not to make me the last possible answer (just as important)-- I think I should be happy. I don't know how to seek these people out. It is a balance I do not find in myself or others. It seems we are either all or nothing, always. So I am lonely.

I am tired, and rambling, and have put myself in a bad mood as a result. Not sure that any of this makes any sense. I'll read it in the morning, most likely, and laugh at myself.

"Everyone carries a room about inside them. This fact can be proved by means of the sense of hearing. If someone walks fast and one pricks up one's ears and listens, say at night, when everything round about is quiet, one hears, for instance, the rattling of a mirror not quite firmly fastened to the wall." -Max Richter