They say that everyone dies alone, but I am not sure that I agree.
I mean, there are times when it is good to be alone, but I'd rather be alone with other people than alone by myself. Please do not mistake this to mean, "alone in a crowd" - I would far rather be alone and by myself than trapped in a crowd of individuals whose existence or patter I care little to nothing about.
An old friend of mine by the name of Danielle Long called last week and inadvertently reminded me of this.
I'd spent the evening with my boss and a few of his friends in a bar, and while it was good to have people around... there was just no connection, and I didn't really belong. Worse still: most of them didn't really belong either, but I think they lied to themselves and said that they wanted to be there because they wanted to somehow try to connect with someone because it was better than going home alone - to be reminded of a wife who had left you, or to find their alcoholic husband that they could bring themselves to cheat on but just couldn't quite bring themselves to divorce, or to feed their dogs and finish off the last of a bottle of Crown alone, or to stagger with their intoxicated roommate home just long enough that they could close the door to their own room and actually be physically alone again for another eight hours. For all the bluster and noise of that bar, none of it meant anything - because none of it connected. It was individuals reaching out for affection and reassurance, but finding their own hang-ups and insecurities in the way.
And I went home and Dani Long called me on the phone and I wasn't alone anymore - and within five minutes of speaking to her I felt more awake and alive and involved than I had all day. I wasn't alone, and I was somehow part of this greater invisible community again. I belonged. And the damnedest thing of it all was that Dani could very well have sat on the other end of the room finishing her anthro reading while Liz Twieg stared intently at her bio homework and Jess Whipple pretended to casually peruse a comic book - all of us involved in our own self-absorbed little worlds - but while none of us would actually have been interacting with one another, none of us would have really been alone.
They also say that no one who has friends is ever alone.
I have friends.
Thanks, guys.