Loneliness. It is something everyone has experienced. I'm sure it is even harder now with everything going on in the world. When I first heard my state was going on lockdown I panicked. I wasn't even super nervous about Covid 19, I didn't want to not be able to leave my house. Thankfully for one I am an introvert and laying around reading books is my happy place, plus I have four very entertaining younger siblings. I am also not saying loneliness is the result of being shut up in our homes, quite the opposite actually so listen up. I think we are all lonely. I know this because I have spent my whole life feeling lonely and I thought it was just me.Then after writing my post about anxiety, so many people contacted me saying "I thought I was the only one." The funny thing was I wrote that blog post because for years I thought I was the only one. As a child, I had a very unusual and frightening experience. My closest friends know about it but it's not something I walk around telling everyone. I went on a retreat in February and a girl I have known for couple of years shared a frightening experience from when she was younger. The experience was shockingly almost identical to mine. Later that night I shared my experience and we discussed how so many people think they are alone. They carry these burdens thinking no one will understand when really all too many people do understand. One must only have the courage to open up to find that actually too many people understand. One of the reasons lockdown makes us feel lonely is because we are masters of distraction. We have jobs and schools and activities... so many activities, and sports and clubs and groups and social media all carefully designed to keep us busy, to hold our attention so we don't have to face the fact that we feel SO ALONE! THAT WE JUST WANT TO SCREAM! THAT WE KNOW SO MANY PEOPLE BUT NOBODY KNOWS US! Yet we dare not tell anyone because no one would ever understand even though we all go through the same thing and we go to sleep at night and we wake up in the morning just to do it all over again. Then we still feel empty so we do more things and more things and more things and we still feel empty but we still haven't realized that no amount of things can fill the hole in our heart. Then we go to church on Sunday to smile and sing songs and hear an inspiring message and we forget it and we go home and start doing things to prepare for the things we will jump back into on Monday with no difference and no change yet we still can't figure out why anxiety and depression run so rampant. I am not trying to bash work or school or activities as they are things we sometimes need to do or enjoy doing and I am certainly not saying anxiety and depression will just go away if we do less things. What I am challenging you to do is look at why you do so many things. Is it really because you enjoy them, or is it to hide. How do we feel so lonely when we come into contact with so many people? It's simple really. We don't really try to get to know people. Our relationships are platonic and we avoid discussing anything deep because we don't want to stir the pot and no one would understand really. We don't have time for friends and who needs friends anyway when we are so good at distracting ourselves. In order to not feel lonely we have to lean on God and others. There is no way around that. Only God can carry us through life and he gave us each other because God said himself it is not good for man to be alone. We often say we just need more time. I have news for you, we have hit the time lottery! The whole world has been paused. It is a whole lot harder to distract ourselves. Now we are just surrounded by our loneliness. For me however, I have known a deeper connection with others during this and have actually been more intentional with relationships and have gotten to really talk to and get to know people I haven't talked to in a while. I have gotten to spend more time with my siblings and have made the time to read my Bible and pray and help others. Don't waste all this time you have been blessed with, you may look back and long for it. And please, certainly don't read this and just go on with your business as usual and jump headfirst back into this rat race called life.
LOVE,
KENZIE
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