Allow my to start this piece by stressing the following facts:
- I am 26 yet feeling as if I am living my 50 year-old mother’s life.
- I am struggling with a bunch of past and present related issues that seem to have no solution no matter how hard I try!
- I am at the lowest point of loneliness I have ever been since as long as I can remember!
“Loneliness is a state of mind“, I agree…
However, during its worst phases, when the dark lays its wings upon the earth leaving it hollow and unfamiliar, loneliness begins to feel like being forced to sit in a small, barely human-sized box, with no windows, doors or any kind of ventilation while you are diagnosed with a severe case of claustrophobia!
Slowly, you start losing the pace of your breath, as if being strangled with a thin, copper wire. You grasp for air but you can’t seem to be able to take any of it in… You squeeze your chest, try to expand your diaphragm, switch your seating position… Nothing works…
You close your eyes… Real tight… Wish for this wave of loneliness to end and for another, yet lonely day, to begin… You wait for the dark to be lifted and hope that with the day’s sun, you’ll breathe with more ease… The morning break doesn’t come…
In a box… With no one there but you, your pains, fears, disappointments and memories of those whom you miss, wedged in this tiny space… The more you think, the bigger the space your thoughts occupy and the tighter the box gets…
Within the very limited breathing air left, you take a few sips of air to call out for help… No one can hear you… No one really cares… You fall silent again…
Now, you’re left with no air and no space to move… Your body goes into shock… You tremble, hallucinate, and then fall into a coma-like sleep…
A few hours later, you wake up, to find yourself on your bed, your body touching the crispy white sheets, your face caressing the fluffy pillow, and still alone, with fragments of memories of the horrible night before to keep you company through the day…
Outlived; 
I've know this box off and on … in varying degrees … yes … seems somehow for no reason I finally moved on … never the same … but move on … the worst when I was 32 …thats 30 years ago … a failed relationship … for months I literally would hear her voice calling my name … of course she wasn't there … time and space … made things well different … We connect via email every couple of years … always remember her birthday … I remember something she said to me that I carry in my head…"Jim we have reallly goood days and reallly baaad days, but most of our days are inbetween … those are the times we see a child doing something for the first time and smile for a second or a bird lands on the window sill for a moment then relizes your there and gives you that "whoops" look and flies away or you get lost in the excitment of work … or find your self lost in a sunset … I'm a vietnam vet and have some trouble sum (creative spelling my specialty) memories … come and go depending what sets things off … and of course I'm an artist do all of my work now for the last two years on my computer so when I get tired or just to tense I turn and look out the window or wander the world, like twitter…and I really take comfort in seeing your smiling face everyday … should let you know that more often … guess I'm babbling but it is just my nature, I have nieces and nephews your age and most but not all sit there and let me jabber … somehow how you have to break out of the box…or at least take the lid … do some things your afraid to (safe and legal young lady)do. Oh the show;The Reaper…I watch it…anyway your in my thoughts…gotta get the lid off the box.Jim