Image: by Salvador Dali
Looking inside yourself is fraught with danger. If you are honest you see a whole bunch of stuff you may not be all that keen to acknowledge.
No matter how much you wish for it, the sun does not shine out your bum, and to most people, you are an anonymous face in the crowd.
When I think about it, I have lived a pretty stupid life. Made some shocking life choices always believing I could control what I was getting into and then discovering I had no idea of what I was doing and my partners knew that too.
The result of that was a whole lot of misery and conflict.
It was doubly dumb on my part as I had no idea I was inflicting pain on the people I thought I loved and cared for.
It turned out I was a source of ill-health and massive anxiety, and I was better well away from them and more so they from me.
So my internal gazing has led me to believe I am safest away from people. In that way, my isolation spares them the discomfort of having to deal with me in any way and me them.
The cold hard truth is I don’t connect with people no matter how much I think I do. I think to most people I am a person on the edge of their lives, and in that way, I can easily be forgotten, at best an after thought as evidenced by my colleagues upon my retirement realising I was leaving and as an afterthought organising a lunch on the last day of school. It was lovely to see the people who turned up but disappointing the ones who said they would be there and didn’t front.
I think in recent times losing my dearest friend has impacted on me. I was thinking that when this situation occurs what do you do when you have no one left to tell things to. You know those inane times you think, “Oh I must tell her about that, she’ll want to know about what that child did, said, achieved.”
So when you look inside you see a hollow where there was once life and vitality, and somehow you have to find something to fill that hollow.
I’m aware it takes time, but time is seriously sprinkled with pain and loss. Your own frailty becomes apparent, and you withdraw further into yourself.
So I hope you can understand why looking inside yourself is so often a troubling experience.
Written for: https://reinventionsreena.wordpress.com/2018/03/02/reenas-exploration-challenge-week-26/
Morpethroad 
Reblogged this on Reena Saxena.
This piece reflects a – my fave word- perspective of the character described. Stories are not one sided. Maybe we value our solitude at one point, which becomes loneliness later. The world has given us our space, bcoz we wanted it. Maybe we are disappointed with not finding our type of people and withdraw into a shell. Maybe we are on the fringes, bcoz we have put others there. Maybe our disapproval or disappointment is palpable, and it drives people away.
Writing is a boon to introverts, as they have a platform to share, and influence a few minds, even if it is for a short while.
Thanks Reena for sharing your wisdom
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