A Tryst with Loneliness ft. Eleanor Oliphant

“A philosophical question: If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, Gail Honeyman

I have tried to write about loneliness before. I have tried, but always choked, to write about loneliness before.

Loneliness is so nuanced I shall always leave something out. Aren’t we all scared of that? But Gail Honeyman somehow manages to take that plunge in her book, Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine. As she tells Eleanor’s story, she takes a leap of faith. Through Eleanor, she connects with us and trusts that whatever she may miss, we shall fill with our own stories.

If nothing, her words have given me a flow. So, let’s try:

He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named

“Loneliness is the new cancer—a shameful, embarrassing thing, brought upon yourself in some obscure way. People don’t want to hear you mention it, for it might tempt fate into visiting a similar horror upon them.”

You would rather talk of football, no? Or the new bill, how it does not make sense why people call it autocratic? Or cricket, your favourite franchise. You would fight like hell for it, wouldn’t you? Cigarette sessions would do on some evenings, but mind you, only social smoking is allowed. Formula1 racing, girls/boys, divorce laws, sometimes even gossip – you can talk about anything, even though some conversations you do not particularly enjoy.

But hey, you like to flow like water, jell with people, and be open to new conversations. How else will you grow?

On growth, now.

Your life is going to change. It is only a matter of time. Every morning is a new day, a clean slate:

• make your bed
• go for a run
• journal your thoughts
• no junk food
• plan your day. Decide a winner task, and do it
• read 30 pages daily
• go out and win the day
• meditate before you go to bed
• practice gratefulness

But you only ever go for a run. You do get up on time, make your bed, and even maintain a journaling streak for a few days. But nothing changes. By the afternoon, the motivation is dying. But it’s still a weekday. You have somewhere to be, however boring that may be.

By the evening, melancholy has returned, and food is your only saviour. By the night, you find yourself drowning. You wave blindly, trying to hold on to anything your hand might catch. And the only things you find are your vices – binge eating, binge watching, reminiscing and brooding…you know your list.

In your bed, you lie guilty. You have let yourself down; you’re no closer to the life that would not hurt as much. This could have been your day 1, but you did not go for a run.

Tomorrow, however, is a new day, a clean slate.

Finding Solace in the Musings of Our Minds

Then the weekends happen when you have nowhere to be. It hits you – you have nowhere to be.

You try to sleep it off, but how much can you sleep? By the afternoon, you’re just lying idle in bed. You fumble across the bed for your phone, and scrolling through it only worsens your state. Somehow, you have failed to make friends, unlike other people. Why is it so difficult for you? Making friends, finding a hangout group, taking it easy, having fun, being happy? What is wrong with you?

“When the aloneness presses down and around me,
crushing me, carving through me like ice,
I need to speak aloud sometimes,
if only for proof of life.“

When we are sad, hurt or lonely, we are attacked by the demons we thought we had defeated.

And why do you need people to be happy? If you do not enjoy your own company, how will other people? What you need is meeting random strangers, exchanging life stories over coffee, exploring new treks, beaches and cafés, spending time in a strange city with only yourself to bank on, walking into a metamorphosis, coming out a renewed person with zeal, vivacity and inexplicable charm. A people magnet.

That’s it. You’re going on a solo trip.

A trip to that hill station. Accommodation in a hostel – sharing rooms with random strangers, new life stories. Sitting in a café, reading a book, looking into the mountainous abyss beyond that railing, thinking, drinking beer and chamomile tea, talking about passions and poetry to random people you find interesting.

You lift the flap of your laptop and start drawing cost estimates – next to next weekend, it’s going to be. A group of friends would have been nice, but that won’t stop you from living your life. It is evening now. You have a lot of time to plan your trip.

You will order a pizza and find a good show.

We Must Always Wear the Shiniest Suits

“I find lateness exceptionally rude; it’s so disrespectful, implying unambiguously that you consider yourself and your own time to be so much more valuable than the other person’s.”

That awkward laugh, that lousy posture, that looking away when you talked to that friend of an acquaintance, you critically analyse everything. Every time you talk to someone, it becomes a test you put yourself through, an assessment where you must wear your best manners, failing which you become the weird person no one wants to be around. And you do not apply these rules to other people.

Or, it’s the other way around. You hold these high behavioural standards for yourself and stick by them like your life depends on them. And you scoff at people for not adhering to them because that’s your explanation of why you don’t attract them.

Either way, you must always wear the shiniest suit in the room.

The Shape Shifter

“Some people, weak people, fear solitude. What they fail to understand is that you don’t need anyone, you can take care of yourself.”

And how many times have you tried to open your heart to people? How many times have you tried to explain your loneliness?

How many times have you tried to wrap your palms around it, but like water it seeped through the spaces between your fingers? It trickled down your hands and rained on the floor. And as you walked towards them to give them a glimpse, you stepped on it. It burnt your feet like acid, but you swallowed the groans. They only saw what was inside your palm, and that wasn’t enough because that wasn’t all.

And how many times did you trust to be dealt with caution but weren’t? How many times did you retract to your room, your bed, your pillow? How many times did loneliness feel more like a respite?

To Melt Like Wax at the Tiniest Act of Compassion

“Whenever I’d been sad or upset before, people in my life would simply call my social worker. I’d be moved somewhere else. Raymond hadn’t phoned anyone. He’d elected to look after me himself. I’d been pondering that there must be some people for whom difficult behaviour wasn’t a reason to end their relationship with you. If they liked you – and Raymond and I had agreed that we were pals now – then, it seemed, they were prepared to maintain contact, even if you were sad, upset, or behaving in very challenging ways. This was something of a revelation.”

OR

“You’ve made me shiny, Laura,” I said. I tried to stop it, but a little tear ran down the side of my nose. I wiped it away with the back of my hand before it could dampen the ends of my new hair. “Thank you for making me shiny.”

The thing with loneliness is that it is personal. As I write this, I know I have missed a lot of things. But I also know and trust that you will fill in.

Image Credits: A Still from the Movie

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