Aug 4, 2010

What is it with empty houses that it repulses me?


Batty left this morning at 8 for her flight and I am left yet again with an almost empty house and an empty room. What is with empty houses that it repulses me? I mean I am all for my space and living on my own and doing my own thing but no I do not necessarily like coming back home with nobody to greet me. Every time any of my friends and family visit I am oh so happy cos when I come back home in the evening their presence will somehow drain all the tiredness and the possible negativity of a work day away. A couple of years back I remember going through my customary boy troubles and picking up Paulo Coelho’s The Zahir on a whim hoping to find some answers there. His writings then still had some of the magic of the The Alchemist and hadn’t become repetitive and as saturated and commercial as they have become today . There was this one particular paragraph on being alone I remember reading. It said something along the lines of how at the end of the day nobody likes being alone and so many of us make our peace with it but given a choice we wouldn’t wanna be walking along this pathway of life all on your own. We humans are born to share, give, take and we thrive on interaction. Loneliness can drive us to insanity and the sooner we realize it the better.

And yet the feeling that surfaced was one of oppressive, distressing loneliness – not having someone with whom I could share the city, the walk, the things I’d like to say...there is nothing worse than the feeling that no one cares whether we exist or not, that no one is interested in what we have to say about life, and that the world can continue turning without our awkward presence.

6 comments:

*** said...

Yeah true....Loneliness is the hardest to fight. Even if everything else in life is going great and better that ever, if you have to come back to an empty house without anyone to say gnite to in person, life somehow doesnt feel complete..one never gets used to being alone! And loneliness has this uncanny knack of reminding you of all the buried and supposedly forgotten and hurtful emotions...Thats where loneliness becomes a burden and not a pleasure to dwell in...

WritingsForLife said...

Yes. This is what we struggle with all our lives I suppose - that want to being wanted, of sharing.

You are not the only one.

Amandeep Singh said...

Well one should learn to oneself and live alone too!

sayrem said...

empty houses are paradise... never had enough of them.

Paroma said...

And that is why, an empty house is an empty house and never an empty home.

*Sigh* You put it so well. No one to greet you when you open the door and switch on the lights to have silence waiting for you in every corner.

Chronicler said...

coming here after a long time.. sigh the pace of life is so dependent on the frame of reference you choose for yourself...