On Loneliness and Solitude (part 2)

Today on the boat, my loneliness is sublime. The weather is warm, the beach is empty and a flurry of watercrafts buzz around me as the party preparations are underway. When I set off yesterday, it was more in defiance than ambition, as my heart is broken and open. I let my guard down and was taken in by a siren song and this weekend is for adventuring and little bit of licking my wounds.  I’ve found that love, and her mistress grief, propel me into the universe and off the dock most often. As a student of love I somehow became a student of grief and loneliness. The boat is school.

I don’t tend to get lonely when I am doing something I enjoy or am competent in, except in times of grief or heartbreak, though the opposite can be true too, as yesterday’s tear off the dock showed. (My crosswind departure under sail was one of my more spiteful acts.) I know that it is possible to be alone and quite content and all too common to feel lonely in a crowded room so it isn’t about being alone (although in this culture I would now say it is more common to experience social anxiety than loneliness). If I didn’t run with the Buddhists and sail singlehanded, I might never have thought to question companionship or loneliness– it’s so obvious that you should find a few someone’s and be done with it– but this question is an occupational hazard, coming both on the dock and in my work.

In most (all?) psychological circles, companionship is a sign of good mental health, it’s “pro-social behavior” and a sign of emotional and psychological sophistication. “Solitary” is a form of punishment and isolation a form of torture and even among sailors, those that set off alone are considered an exotic subset. Tales of sailors cracking under pressure of being so far from civilization are rampant. I suppose it really isn’t for the faint of heart or mind. “Healthy” people can cure loneliness by reading social cues and have all kind of resources they can employ.  I’ll grant that pro-social behavior is essential for living successfully in society and alleviating the severe suffering that comes with not having those skills and the benefits of good contact cannot be overestimated. However I also believe that there is a price to be paid and it all too easy to see in the harbor as the slushee margarita machine gets far more use than the anchor.

Loneliness is a relational phenomena. I am lonely when I am yearning for another. In this case, the Other has something I need, some power they can offer to set me right. Just today a sailor explained this negotiation perfectly when he asked me to sail around the world with him, my second offer of this sort this week. (I’ve been invited to the Baja HaHa since even writing that) He said he needed to borrow the enthusiasm of another to get him started. If he could see me down in bilge, it would give him the spark to follow through. Maybe I can borrow a little ego strength from you to make this task, such as rebedding the scuppers, a little easier. You can just watch me do it, as a (good) parent might have done, and this will be of great comfort to me, I’ll love you for that, thank you for “meeting my needs” (a phrase my patients use a lot that I am still not sure where they picked up). I think many successful relationships have been founded on this kind of tit for tat, where you watch me rebed the scuppers and I’ll make you laugh while you do your taxes. I’ll ask you how your day was and you’ll get me gifts on the major holidays and we might never feel lonely again.

When I have found someone to play this game with, where I trade in my power for their authority and love, usually a good teacher, a psychologist or sailor, I cling to them like a frightened babe, adoring and in mercy. Thank all the gods there is someone who can save me! Perhaps because I indulge my loneliness so often, my relief is so great and admiration so strong that I might be brought to tears at the sight of them. It is such a massive relief to think that someone has what I need, that things are somehow going to be taken care of, that it’s all going to work out from here on out! Thank goodness someone has figured things out and what a boon that they have this answer they are willing to give me! Now we can finally set off.

Love is like this, transformative, but can it be purchased and if so, what is the price? Is this health or a ponzi scheme? Because love is transformative I may genuinely need you to help me recover myself, as that is what the best kinds of love can do but what they rarely tell you is that loving others can also be a road to recovery. And it doesn’t have to be a person, it could be the world. When I can walk this razor’s edge of loving the world but not anyone in particular, I am happiest and the most available to love in the kindest way. If I can tolerate loss and loneliness I am available to see others as they actually are and need to be seen.

Like everyone else, I am vulnerable to the siren’s song of needing another deeply, and then losing myself in the bargain. It’s a razor’s edge, as avoiding love is its own trap, but getting lost can take precious time to recover from. After ending my last relationship, I made a promise to myself that any romantic endeavors would have to come second to my dreams. So instead of investing in boyfriends, I invested in a boat and became lonelier than I have ever been. What I sacrificed in interpersonal pleasure, I gained in spades in self knowledge. I had to come up answers to some pretty serious questions:

What if I can’t find you or get you to love me?

What if you aren’t there to save me from this experience of myself and there aren’t any good products available that might distract me?

Can I really trust Moitessier that getting alone might be so sublime I wouldn’t come back?

What I have found is that loneliness might be a spiritual truth as much as a psychological problem. I suspect loneliness might be my longing to know myself, turned in and twisted on itself by a culture that says I should never be alone, or bored. I was about to go a date a couple of years ago and just before we met up, I looked at his online profile to jog my memory. I realized, reading about him, that I didn’t want to date him, I wanted a PhD and he had one. I just confused myself about what I wanted for me and what I thought someone could give me.

I’ll tell you a secret: loneliness is cured through knowing ourselves. Mind wants love and security but psyche is already whole. If  psyche is complete and inherently whole, then loneliness is the experience of longing for our lost selves- not real at all but an apparition; a ghost you might say, like missing your sunglasses while they were on your head all along.  Despite all karmic momentum and pop-psychology suggesting that I should cling hard and fast to some wondrous other, the highest gods have told me something that I just can’t get out of my bones. They say that if you want magic, you have to go through the woods alone first. The pattern is consistent, the movement so repetitive it is almost boring.

I set out alone and no sooner than I have done so, the world opens up. I set out yesterday on a solo sail with no plans or engagements and hadn’t even anchored before a skiff pulled up to invite me to the literal party coming together. This has happened hundreds of times by now. People would say, “You travel alone? As a woman?!” And I have come to respond, “I am only every really alone for about 3-10 minutes.” I am both relieved and disappointed by this truth because this is where the story tends to end. All’s well that ends well in a pink flamingo skiff, right? If you take the leap into the unknown you will be rewarded with an anarchist boat club?

But the whole turn was one of aloneness, that was how I got me there in the first place. If I had stopped getting alone so long ago, I wouldn’t have gotten here now, on this empty beach, taking in sun and watching my sweet girl spin on her anchor. I wouldn’t have found all this love and would have missed my date with a life I couldn’t have dreamed of. If I weren’t so sad about this latest romantic mishap, I probably wouldn’t have had the energy to basically pull an Ophelia and throw myself into the sea, er LongPac.

I want to know what’s behind door number 2. What if it is magic all the way down, past the snakes and spiders I’ve been warned about? Could the price of company be the forfeiture of unknowable magic? And is the price of magic to tolerate my loneliness, to flinging myself into the sea, calling, to the dawn and the stars, “I love you, goodbye”, grateful I got to love you at all? Is this what it may take to cross and ocean and find myself?

I can’t say I would recommend this path to anyone else, except I’ve seen the turn in others too. I’ve made a living out of guiding people deep into their most joyful selves by giving up and grieving all the dreams and stories about how it was supposed to be in order to meet the person they really need, themselves.