When I was younger, I was told that all I had to do was my best; that if I poured out my all, then things would be mine. That if I worked hard, and kept my head low, and made the right calls, then the right choices would find their way to me.
Life, I’ve since found out, is not that straightforward.
Recently I’ve been thinking about loneliness, and about how a choice towards something is also always a choice to give another thing up.
If you ask me how I am, I will answer that I am great, and I would not be lying. I am surrounded by people I love, doing work that I think matters, in a city that’s wonderful if not a little overwhelming.
If you look at my face while I say that, you will see that my eyes will droop a little in exhaustion, in the same way it will light up in joy.
I am beaming at the privilege of living.
I am also very, very lonely.
No one really talks about it: the epidemic of loneliness. They say it’s lonely at the top but I feel lonely even before I reach it. I am filled with gratitude for where I am, but I am also cognisant of all I’ve given up to get here.
I see my nephew growing up before my eyes, separated by the distance of oceans. I can only see images of him through pixels and shared photos. I see my dog grow out his hair, and have it cut short, and stick out his tongue, but not smell him, or cuddle him close, or have him lick my tears when I’m captured by overwhelm.
I see my parents and my siblings yearly, twice if I’m lucky. My friends even far less regularly. And I wonder if dreaming too big, too grandly, is worth it. I think about the Philippine beaches and the tropical sun on my face and think whether I’d dreamed far too much, wanted far too grandiosely, thought far too eagerly that the world is big and my smallness can make an impact, so I move and move and move, and make little homes and leave pieces of me in places I find peace.
I see the stars and remember how younger Joy yearned for romantic love, and a place to find home. Older Joy yearns for the same things, but thinks — no one can love an itinerant, and a nomad can never be still. And so I love without abandon, fully giving my heart to those I think deserve it, and have it broken over and over, because I have to leave my love, I can’t stay around my love, I have big dreams my love, I cannot be constrained by place and time and a person other than me my love…
And yet, in the minutes before I sleep, I think to myself, I am so, so lonely.
Is loneliness the price for dreaming?
Of perpetual finds 