Moody Monday

Moody Monday -- Lonely
©1999, 2004 Wil Mosher All Rights Reserved. Posted by Hello


Definition: lonely

1.
1. Without companions; lone.
2. Characterized by aloneness; solitary.

2. Unfrequented by people; desolate: a lonely crossroads.

3.
1. Dejected by the awareness of being alone.
2. Producing such dejection: the loneliest night of the week.



It is odd, but I am rarely lonely. My brothers were and are mostly the same way. I am able to spend extended periods of time alone with just myself to keep me occupied and I am just fine with that.

I trace it to being forced to spend every waking moment in high school with other young men in a boarding school after my mother died. There was no reasonable expectation of privacy. If it wasn't a roommate, an upper classman beating on you for simply existing, a kind-hearted professor or priest or their spouses looking in on the new kid, or one of the "Monitors" checking to make sure you have lights out at curfew - you just never had a moment's peace.

I served as an altar boy, which meant I was up at 5:45AM to be at the Chapel at 6AM for the early morning service every other week for seven days straight. Curfew was 11PM. The rest of the time was spent in the company of others. For an overly sensitive, grieving little snot, accustomed since the age of 10 to having his own room, this was a miserable state of affairs.

I've been a "Serial Loner" ever since. I have an exaggerated need to be alone. If I don't get enough alone time I go crazy, relationships deteriorate and the old dog starts growling at the world, howling at the moon and stars. This has been an element in all of my failed relationships and marriages since high school. Women want "togetherness" -- my pathological need to be alone much of the time is the antithesis and is received, perceived, as rejection.

I like to be "alone." I get into trouble when I get "lonely" and go off seeking companionship. A recurring thread in my life. And so it goes ...