So I'm sitting at my desk on a lunch break, eating the way I prefer it, by myself. I know how cold this must sound, but I don't mean to be. 

I just find socially eating very awkward to begin with (especially in groups, but even often just with another person)...plus, I really, really like having the time to catch up with quick reading or some listening to music with my headphones. Until the recent past, I would spend my lunchtime writing a friend I had become close with over the period of three years, but that friendship has ended and though it still hurts a whole lot more than I want it to, I am slowly adjusting.

Anyway, enough of that...the heart of what I want to say is this: I am so tired of people who are perceived as loners or wanting to be alone somehow being seen as very off...or even worse. That is why I was so thrilled to see this article:


https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/living-single/201406/the-happy-loner 

with emphasis on statements like this one:


"Personally, I'd be more likely to distrust people who can't bear time with themselves. What's wrong with them that they can't abide their own company – what are they trying to hide in the crowd?"


Actually, I do not really think of myself as a complete loner when I am home with my cat. He feels like a companion just as much as a human would be, only one I am more comfortable with for so many reasons. 

It seems like there are many more articles out there 

(like this one: 

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jun/22/britain-loneliness-capital-isolation-being-alone )

and that also thrills me. 

I still miss the friend I was writing with and I will always wonder if she is okay and what went wrong, but here's the thing: when you are a loner and have been for quite some time I think it cushions (even if it is just a tad bit) you better when hurt like "ghosting" comes along.

Music therapy

There is so much healing in listening to music, something I've been doing this evening and which I have not done in ages and ages because my dear cat just does not seem to like it. 

I think I actually scared him when my mood improved upon listening to Matthew Wilder's "Break My Stride" and I started singing out loud along to it. 

It's not only rather upbeat and something I first heard during my "formative years," it has a great message about not letting someone get to you. Or, at least, that's how I see it and since I really need to see that right now, I will, even if the context isn't exactly the same and I'm not one hundred percent in touch with the lyrics.

My temperament has been very fragile as of late and so that weird giddiness was very brief and I started feeling sad again as "Break My Stride" faded. 

Though I had planned to turn in very early to try and find sleep to escape from that sadness, I realize that I desperately have been needing music and so I kept on with it and my iPhone shuffle brought this to me...something which I have liked for quite some time, and which is especially helping right now. 

With my headphones on, I find great, great comfort in it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQQeNBmRp5o



"Some People"

Some people kill for less
Some people find it hard to get dressed
Some people, well
Ask how old I am

Some people live in a life
Some people need more than a slice
But when it fades
When the glitter's gone

You know it
You owe it to yourself
You won't let it make you mad
It's already crazy

Old and lonely when the shade is down
The brighter lights just smells their empty heads

Some people don't get much
Some people feel they're in touch
With spirit worlds, talking to you now

Some people just gotta say
Some people just wanna play
They get a kick when it's all messed up

You know it
You owe it to yourself
You won't let it make you mad
It's already crazy

You know it
You owe it to yourself
You won't let it make you mad
It's already crazy

And what you thought you lost was just mislaid
All the poems written in your skin

You know it
You owe it to yourself
You won't let it make you mad
It's already crazy

You know it
You owe it to yourself
You won't let it make you mad
It's already crazy

And what you thought you lost was just mislaid
And all the poems written in your skin

Within a week, the Washington Times printed two separate op-ed pieces on how sexual behavior, specifically gay and lesbian sexual behavior, is controllable and how it should be and is morally necessary and responsible to completely squelch. Here, as in previous pieces published in the super, super conservative newspaper, the Washington Times compares homosexuality to infidelity and pedophilia.

While both articles upset me terribly (I happen to believe being gay is completely separate and different from being someone who could cheat on a spouse or sexually abuse anyone) I do agree that sexual acts are definitely things from which we can abstain. 

What I don't agree with is that sexual behavior is the only thing (or even a big thing) about being gay. I think there is so much, much more to being gay than being sexual.

The kind of mentality expressed below and the kind of mentality expressed in the constant homophobia I see expressed in ultra-conservative viewpoints can be devastating and it is often based on hate, fear, complete misunderstanding and even outright lies.

And yet I cannot help but find myself still (even after more than twenty five years of being unable to deny who I am) wanting to "not be gay." I started reading the book pictured ^above^ (whose innocent, promising little cover really just hides the fact it's a somewhat less harsh take on 'ex-gay therapy') and felt more sad than ever. The writer (whom I have no doubt is very sincere in the unintentionally hurtful statements he makes) basically says that giving in to who you are is "self-indulgent."

Maybe so, maybe it is, but I also know (from deep, painful experience and with all my heart) that denying who you really are, fighting that every single day of your life...well, that can also make you think and feel very, very dark thoughts, to the point that you want oblivion, that you no longer want to live.

I honestly do not know what to think and I struggle with this daily, even now in our supposedly more enlightened 2018. Do I believe and try to follow what people like the writers above believe or do I dare hope to believe that writers like this one may, instead, be right?:



In this book is a beautiful passage that goes like this:

...Their gender and sexual orientation is not something controllable or chosen. It cannot be “fixed” through conversion therapy or stern biblical admonitions. It simply is. These people should not be confined to closets as this woman with the issue of blood had been. It was not her strict adherence to the rites and rituals of religion which made her whole. It was her faith. And that faith allowed her to go in peace.

If you identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer, or any other designation; welcome. If you love someone who identifies as one of those designations; welcome. In this space you are safe. In this space you are recognized as a particular expression of the image and likeness of God. In this space you can experience wholeness as a follower of Christ.

In many of these stories, the protagonist dies. Some are murdered by people who consider them subhuman or evil. Others commit suicide, overcome by the ugliness they face, and unable to stand a future of more. Meanwhile, Jesus weeps.

I want to hope that maybe this could be true, but so many, many people (both strangers I meet in books and people I know in real life) tell me otherwise. 

This article from the "Guardian" has one section that really speaks to the experience of being "ghosted":

 Leaver agrees that it is important to “operate with empathy to both ghosters and ghostees”, but she says that, regardless of their motivation, people who ghost need to realise that their actions “can be extremely hurtful and painful. I do stand by [using the words] ‘cruel’ and ‘cowardly’, but that’s not said without empathy or compassion,” She adds. “I think it’s important for us to understand why it’s happening, in order to encourage it to stop.”

The rest of the article is here:

 https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/oct/31/ghosting-busters-why-tech-companies-trying-stop-blanking-each-other

 https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/oct/31/ghosting-busters-why-tech-companies-trying-stop-blanking-each-other

I think what hurts most about being ghosted is that you will never find out what you did wrong or how you can improve on what you did do wrong...or, worse, never know what happened to someone you really cared about...