That k.d. lang got it right when she sang, “Constant craving has always been,” without actually defining a particular hunger. It’s the human condition to want completion of one fashion or another. 
For some, the longing is personal, emotional, spiritual; for others, the urge is for professional or material gains, although I suspect that’s just masking a hankering of other, deeper proportions.
I have two queer female friends who have expressed suffering at the hands of loneliness lately. I have another non-queer friend who continually asks me if I, being single for a long time, get lonely. She does, and she’s married. Both of the others also have partners, which signals to me that it’s an entirely internal condition that has nothing to do with actually having companionship. Or maybe it speaks to the character of the relationships they are in, or the way in which they or their partners approach the relationships. It would seem that something is lacking somewhere in the mix, though I really have no idea.
I’m not sure that I do… get lonely, that is. Bored, certainly, although I do enjoy my own company and need alone time to regenerate. For my friends, perhaps the expectations or hopes placed on their various partners is too high, asking them to fill a void that can never be filled by another person. Does being alone for a good stretch of life make someone less lonely because you (hopefully) make peace with the silence, the space, the solitude? Again, I really have no idea.
What a journey we’re all on, hey?
My constant craving is for home. I’ve never had that. Not even as a kid. The closest I’ve ever known was when I lived at a meditation ashram. I suppose not having a home or feeling at home is a type of loneliness, too. It is definitely a sense of being incomplete, uneasy. I’m not sure if home is a place or a person or a state of being… maybe it’s all three or maybe it’s none of them.
Whatever our desire, how do we slake these perpetual thirsts? Is there an ablution we must perform in order to cleanse ourselves of the pining completely? A ritual fire to immolate the yen? Or must we walk into and through these yearnings to acknowledge their presence and receive their teachings?
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2 comments
sarah says:
11/17/2009 at 7:50 pm (UTC -8)
Loneliness for me was because I had isolated myself from life, from people. So even though in a relationship, I had to make those connections myself. I made them in my brain through music, increasing seratonin levels in the brain, fun, sun, and changing the old isolated ways. A touch deprived child can feel very lonely as an adult until they admit to the wounds, go through them and heal them. Thank you for your writing on this.
kelly says:
11/17/2009 at 10:03 pm (UTC -8)
So it really is the internal condition that needs to be looked at, and any obstacles must be dealt with.
I guess my very active imagination has always been my friend keeping me out of a deep loneliness, though I’ve certainly had minor bouts of it.
Thanks for sharing your process.