Together, Alone
It was a Friday morning.
It was a Friday morning.
Drops of diagonal rain hit the windows of our greasy spoon du jour. Inside, checkerboard floors, chalkboard menus and comical sauce bottles united to become a parody of themselves altogether. We could have fried our breakfast and brewed our tea at home but there’s something about the way those floating plastic chairs hugged our hips that felt comforting.
We confessed that morning, with triangle toast in one hand and ivory mugs in the other, that not much does feel soothing at the moment. As we waxed lyrical about the societal effects of a pandemic, our cutlery became theatrical props to our witty observations – jabbing the air enthusiastically! – before being slowly lowered at the changing tone of our own feelings; separation, loneliness and mediocrity.
“It feels like January”, my tender friend exclaimed. “It does!” I replied. “But it’s not.”
His sentiment echoed through my mind like an epiphany that felt satisfying to realise but that I didn’t want to hear. January is cold, it’s dark and it’s a pause. At the beginning of a new year, we prepare ourselves for a month of hibernation, greyscale rhythms and soon-failed resolutions. January takes its place as an outcast month – weightily, but with full acceptance – and those that exist within it are somewhat kinder to themselves as waves of aimlessness inevitably occur.
In this premature wave of ‘January’, it seems that the bewildering feeling of ‘together, alone’ is washing over us in varying degrees. Here we are, physically revelling in the reunited, binging on sticky socialising and basking in the opportunity for normality while emotionally, we continue to swim against the violent tides of mental malfunction. I feel the glitch of my psyche every day, attempting to keep my head above the tension that holds thankfulness in the same grip as not feeling quite there. Circumstantially, we recognise the honey taste of all that is good and yet, the hum of fragility continues to cling close.
For me, this hazy state has materialised in a sickly slice of writer’s block. Which, as a writer, is at best cliché and at worst – suffocating. I wonder what your own haze looks like right now; extroverts struggling to socialise, runners lacking motivation, academics losing concentration, the faithful forgetting how to pray, entertainers with heavy hearts, artists second-guessing their expressions. It’s been a rough few years – we know – but sometimes it helps to say it outright, collectively and one more time.
Against the closing backdrop of carefree heat and summer loving, writing down observations of disconnect, struggle and depression feels jarring and sending them out for you to read feels a little cruel. This is the moment! The daydream we held onto! The utopia outside our four walls! There’s no place for melancholy here – but it’s quietly sitting with us all. My hope is that the catharsis of “I’m still wobbling” will act not as a downer but as a tool to tear down your own narratives of isolation – no, it’s not just you.
Within the sober analysis of a season that continued to keep us on tenterhooks, recognising my own humanness has become a nectar in which I’ve continued to draw from. To be human is to be contradictory, not by intention or stupidity or malice, but purely by the inevitable ebbs and flows of living. We are all well-acquainted with the days that feel like three, the weeks that serve joy with anger, the months that clash celebration and grief. One moment we’re exhilarated, and the next we’re falling apart.
Not long ago, we were daily united in a fight against universal sickness and subverted social practices. Every day was unpredictable, and our collective suffering permitted an appropriately emotional – and public – response. It was releasing to feel the freedom of vulnerability, wasn’t it? It didn’t feel offbeat to ask loved ones about the state of their minds, often, and without caveat. But now, we return to the draining game of guessing who’s got it together and who doesn’t, tentatively treading the waters of our own status to work out where we could be ranking right now. The issue is, the very essence of being human will have you sky high at 10 and lying with your face in the dirt by 3: the podium places of life keep moving and our attempts to climb back to the top are exhausting us once again.
As the premise of this newsletter, we don’t know what we’re doing, still very much stands, I imagine that the feeling of ‘together, alone’ rings true for you too. I don’t write with answers but with empathy, observation and an honesty that says “yeah, me too”. In some seasons, waiting for strength is gruelling and distant but I still believe that a little can be found in sharing our neurosis and embracing those confusing, daily paradoxes that serve us the good with the difficult.
I pray that you’ll find your way out of your own premature January – together, not alone.