All humans are lonely.

Of memory ghosts, messages in bottles, and fireflies

In the Café by Fernand Lungren - Public Domain (Source — Raw Pixel)

I have a memory that rises regularly to the surface of my awareness, usually in moments of solitude. In this memory, I am maybe eleven or twelve years old, and it is late afternoon on an overcast October day. I am standing alone on the grassy hill in the middle of the rolling field that stretches from the front porch of my childhood home down our long, forest-lined driveway to the mailbox, standing sentry at the edge of the main road. With my back to the only two houses I can see (my family’s home and my grandmother’s) I could be standing alone in the wilderness. 

A late autumn wind pushes my hair into my eyes, and whispers, with a touch of menace, of winter storms yet to come. High above me — silhouetted against the soft, swirling gray of dense clouds — fallen leaves and fluttering birds dance together in a wild ballet. I have an urge to reach up toward the sky in a gesture that feels like an entreaty for connection.

I see all of this so clearly in my mind’s eye when the ghost of this day wanders out of the past to sit with me in the present. But what anchors the memory to my heart is not what I saw, but what I felt — a deep longing tinged with grief that I could not explain. It left me feeling like someone who had been exiled from their beloved home forever. The sense of loss nearly brought me to tears, but to this day I cannot name what caused that wave of yearning and loneliness.

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Loneliness is an unavoidable part of being human. Hopefully, you don’t feel lonely all the time, but we all feel lonely some of the time. And we’ve all seen loneliness in others. 

When my beau and I used to go to the local pub on Friday nights, there was an older gentleman who sometimes sat beside us at the bar. He always came alone, and always with a book, usually a battered paperback. Sometimes he wore headphones. The bartenders knew his order without him having to ask. He would sit amidst the hubbub of Friday-night reveling, chewing slowly, and turning the pages. He rarely looked up. Once or twice I made eye contact, and smiled, but we never had an actual conversation. Was he lonely? I don’t know. Perhaps he enjoyed dining alone with only a novel for his dinner companion. But then why, I wonder, did he choose to come to one of the most boisterous places in town on one of the busiest nights of the week?

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We are all searching for connection, for that feeling of belonging and being understood. Even those of us who aren’t “joiners” want to be included. Even those of us who are shy want to be seen. We want others to accept us as we are, recognize our worthiness, and be interested in what we have to say. It’s human nature.  

But it’s scary to put yourself out there, to expose your soft underbelly by making the first move. What if I say the wrong thing? What if they think I’m weird? What if they say no, or — worse — ignore me?

The fear of rejection runs deep. 

Looking from the outside in, someone might assume that I’d have an easy time fitting in. I’m a middle-aged, middle-class, CIS-gendered, white woman. You could not be blamed for assuming there are countless places I could find “my people.” But the truth is that I’ve lived most of my life at the edges of various social circles. 

I get along with most people, but I’ve never had that tight-knit group of ride-or-die friends who tell each other everything and always have each other’s backs. You know — the kind television writers invent to make the rest of us feel inadequate.

And as I write that, I wonder if anyone will get the joke, or if I’m the only loser in the room who feels this way.

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If the stories we consume with such unending hunger are any indication, I have to believe I’m not alone in yearning for more connection. Once you peel away the trappings of genre and style, all my favorite books, television shows, and movies are about the same thing: finding your place in the world, your people, and yourself. For starters, look at any Pixar movie. But this theme runs through so many stories. Maybe we are all orphans at heart.

I am particularly drawn to the “found family” trope — not because I feel a lack in my real-life family (I’m very lucky in that department), but because I love the idea of a disparate group of misfits coming together more or less by accident only to learn that they are better together and that being together allows each of them be more uniquely themselves. From Ted Lasso and Parks & Rec to Guardians of the Galaxy and Peanut Butter Falcon to pretty much every book by T.J. Klune and Becky Chambers, we love stories about people “finding home” — literally and figuratively.

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I have another memory. I am in my late thirties and in the middle of a messy divorce. It’s a warm summer night, and I have left my three-year-old daughter asleep in her crib, my soon-to-be-ex-husband keeping an ear out for her from the living room. I am exhausted and afraid and unsure of almost everything in my life. 

I drive a mile-and-a-half down the road and pull into the tiny, dirt parking area of a state park trailhead. KT Tunstall sings to me from my car’s CD player, “Oh what is in store for me now? It's coming apart. I know that it's true, ‘cause I'm feeling my way through the dark.” I turn off the headlights, and drop my head into my hands.

After a moment and a few deep breaths, I raise my eyes and look out into the shadows beneath the oaks and evergreens that fringe the small meadow between me and the dark forest. And as KT sings about trying to find a light on somewhere, a firefly winks at me from the edge of the field. And then another, and another. A moment later, I am smiling through my tears as the entire field comes to life with a flickering constellation of firefly glimmers — a luminescent conversation in a language I don’t understand, but which nevertheless leaves me feeling less alone. 

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For all that loneliness can be hard to bear, it can also be the catalyst for great beauty and deep connection. 

Every creative endeavor — book, film, painting, song — is as much a bid for connection as it is an exercise in self expression. What is self expression, after all, if not an attempt to say something to whoever will listen, and to hopefully see the light of recognition in their eyes? Art is not meant to exist in a void. It’s a message in a bottle, waiting to be found.

And loneliness has the potential to coax us out of our shells. When we feel it deeply enough, it gives us the courage to step outside our comfort zone. Maybe we say hello to someone. And maybe someone says hello back. And there we are — like two fireflies signaling across the darkness, taking tiny steps toward being a little less like strangers, and a little more like friends.

That’s why I’m here. Writing this. Exposing my soft underbelly.