Of Loneliness

I Love my dad. We gossip, he always asks me 'habari ya watoto', maybe he thinks I have more than one child or he is counting the ones yet to be born? I speak to my dad every morning. He calls at 7am religiously. On my way to work. In a noisy matatu. When I pick and he hears the noisy background (loud music) he knows I am okay, so he says. I like to flash, flash, flash (that's cheap for giving him missed calls) just to annoy him. If he doesn't call for some reason (hardly), and I call in the evening and hear a drunken hello I know he is okay, so I just annoyingly hang up. I have been unwell for quite sometime and coincidentally during that time he didn't call me for like three days. Maybe he was swarmed in some drinking den somewhere. It was a long weekend. I didn't have the strength either to call him. He calls one morning and I am in bed, he is shocked, what where is the music? why is it quiet? why are you in bed? Then I tell him I am unwell. He freaks out and begins to go on a guilt trip, maybe I should have checked on you yesterday or the day before, did you go to hospital? has anyone (my siblings) come to see you? Then he goes on a calling rampage and calls everyone who knows me to say that I am unwell. That day I was reminded how much he cares about me. We have a love hate relationships. But he cares. 

That morning I realised that I am craving for something. Something deep. AFFECTION. Just someone to check up on me and ask if I am okay. That gesture of dropping by just to check how am doing. Here is the headliner.

I feel lonely every single day. I am just afraid to admit it to the people around me lest I be deemed clingy. No This is not related to Baby daddy's death. Maybe it is. Many unsent texts and unspoken words. Its just some hollow feeling. Like I don't know who I am. Like I am depressed. 

I just want to feel like I am important to someone. SIMPLE. 

I took a self audit and realised that I have been attracting all the negative men, awful bunch and the 'bad boys' because of my self esteem. Feelings of inadequacy. Its like I have this HUGE void in my soul. I keep settling for less than I deserve and I feel like everyone is out to get me. No matter how good their intentions are. I recently met a man, handsome and young, seemed to have everything going for him and looked well put together. He pursued me, really did, BUT due to my low self esteem and getting used to attracting all the wrong kind, I kept looking for what was wrong with him instead of focusing on everything that was right about him. I eventually concluded that he is too young for me (he is 28) and closed that chapter. sigh. I know that I am not alone in this. This yearning for affection. There are people out there who seem perfectly okay, married even, but deep down they are crushed and lonely. 

Loneliness doesn't necessarily mean you are alone. Its a deep feeling. You can have people around you all day but still have that deep empty void in your soul. According to Wikipedia ‘Loneliness is a complex and usually unpleasant emotional response to isolation or lack of companionship.’ 

I long to talk to someone, genuine, about stupid things including if squirrels marry, do they? I long to wake up to a text. I long to giggle about nothing really and have those random lunch dates. To be with someone who wants to be with me. Who is proud of me just the way I am.. Then of course they will disappear. Or get too busy. Or find someone else. Then my heart will break and the cycle will start over. Then I saw this:

“When I get lonely these days, I think: So BE lonely, Liz. (Linda) Learn your way around loneliness. Make a map of it. Sit with it, for once in your life. Welcome to the human experience. But never again use another person's body or emotions as a scratching post for your own unfulfilled yearnings.”

― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

I follow baby girl around the house. Everyone seems to have stuff to do including her. Its like she is avoiding me nowadays. She sleeps at 7.30. Who sleeps that early? She watches frozen everyday. Every single day and is still glued to the telly the millionth time she watches it. See you agree that she is avoiding me right? Its like she doesn't need me anymore. She knows how to read now so she reads her own books. Loudly. Word by word, no fullstops or commas or anything. Even the hard words she doesn't ask for my help anymore. She just skips them or misreads them then the sentence doesn't even make sense. My sister took her for a sleepover one weekend, I think they have colluded to finish me. Its a miracle I didn't call after every three seconds, maybe I did. I felt like a part of me was ripped off, she was gone for a million days. No it was just overnight. Every weekend I literally look for stuff to do. I watch TV series till the wee hours so that I spend my Saturday afternoon sleeping. I watch sponge bob and teenage mutant ninjas. 

I stare at the phone. My mulika mwizi. Waiting for someone to start a chat. Then I remember I have no airtime. No messages come through anyway so I don’t need airtime. Everytime my phone beeps its a client or my fellowship group with reminders of fellowships or sometimes a random who is super bored trying to kill time. I spend my time stalking people on social media. I hate the fact that I am the only one at a stand-still. Life around me apparently is going on. NEWS FLASH. I am lonely.

Or could it be mid-life crisis? Do you remember the boom-twaffs (pimped out, extremely loud mats) that I used to hate with a passion? Well I actually stand at the busstop to wait for them. I would rather be late than get into an old creeky embassavva. Yes, I know!, what happened to dreading the speed and the loud music? The adrenaline those matatus, the boom twaffs I mean, give me is just out of this world. I think the drivers don't see the road, otherwise I fail to understand why they are always using the pavement or the pedestrian lanes. 

Anywho, 

“Loneliness is a wilderness, but through receiving it as a gift, accepting it from the hand of God and offering it back to him with thanksgiving, it may become a pathway to holiness, to glory and to God himself” (Elizabeth Elliot).

I need to recognize God in my season of loneliness. I need to trace him. I need to stop looking to people to fill this vacuum and know that he is the ultimate vacuum filler. 

He said I will never leave you nor forsake you, right? (Deuteronomy 31:6)  On good days I believe this. But on bad days I hope for much more than that. I feel like he owes me. Like after all I have been through he owes me a happily ever after. My very own happily ever after. Yeah, go ahead and roll your eyes. Ridiculous. But then why I am feeling like this? 

Sometimes all I want is to vent. Being Human its only naturally to want to vent to another human being. Taking it to the phone or text. But I don’t find someone to engage me. Then I remember the throne. God's Throne that is always there and I can reach it at any moment. I talk to Him and talk then He doesn't talk back. Like hey we are supposed to have a conversation, aren't we? Then I think maybe I have gone insane. Maybe I am insane, just maybe.

Have you ever waited for someone to text first? Or to remember that you are going through something and be gracious enough to follow through? No you haven’t. Sometimes I am afraid to be the first to say 'Hey I need you' Because that other person is already complete with or without me. Bummer. Then I remember God who first loved me before I even loved myself. When I draw near to Him, he will draw to me. Given. 

 James 4:8Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. 

I am not abnormal. Jesus felt the same at the cross. He felt beaten. Probably felt alone. You know the famous Matthew 27:46 "Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani? Yeah that’s Greek or French or Hebrew or something for Where the heck are You oh God, when I need you most. Even David felt the same way. Yeah, the David who is after God’s own heart. No its not made up:

Psalm 22

1 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning?

I scream at God everyday. Frustrated that he doesn't Boom and say I am here. I feel His presence sometimes. Not always. So where are you? 

I have temporary moments of high. Like I am high on some cheap stuff. No I am not doing drugs or alcohol. I don’t know why that happens. Like I am two different people, bipolar even. I have two extremes. I laugh like a mad woman. Then I am back to sulking. His joy. The joy of the Lord. That is what I need. Not some temporary high. They say its all in the mind. How you feel that is, but really is it?

Philippians 4: 4-5

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand;

He knows me. He does.  That’s what I always say. He create d me. He knows this season in my life. Psalms 139 in its entirety speaks about my relationship with God. How it ought to be. He knows me. Deep. He does. Imagine he thinks about me everyday.

Then Why am I fussing about the need to be thought about by people? To feel fulfilled by people? To feel whole in people? That’s the devil’s work. No seriously, I have all that I need in God and I still feel incomplete? How do you explain that?

How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!

How vast is the sum of them!

I will just draw near to him and WAIT. SIGH.