Part 3 (of 3): Accepting Isolation

Part 3 (of 3): Accepting Isolation

So you're okay with the idea of being a seasoned, wiser person, but you're worried you'll be alone because everything familiar is tied to the old way of thinking. There was security in it, and slipping out from under that blanket is scary. Even the people who inspired you to see your mistakes suddenly seem imperfect and insincere.

There you are. Sitting alone. Seeing things differently. You feel improved, but you can't see much to reinforce it. There is cold. Exposure to the elements.

Welcome to the hardest and most important part of the transition. Everything you look at brings a sad nostalgia. It reminds you of the peace you had in your old climate-controlled environment. The easy place, where even the most difficult questions caught the quickest sitcom answers.

Look up at the sky. What is it? Blue? Black? Clouds, stars, moon, sun?

Now get up and walk somewhere. Stand in a place you've never stood before. And look up again.

Is it the same?

Yes, it is.

The shape of it is changing (always), and the contents within it are changing (always), but it has never changed. It is still the same sky you saw when you looked up the last time. And when you looked up at age 6. And when someone else looked up and had a feeling of awesome, wondrous infinity - someone in another country. From another background. During another century.

You are alone. But you have never been alone.

Instead, you have truly unique company. You share space with only those who see living as an impossible miracle, a gift of singular circumstantial specialness. You are now friends with those who accept that there is no actual "right" and no actual "wrong", and there never was, and there is only one thing that matters when you lie down in the darkest night, closing your eyes and looking inside:

There lives the only light. Its brightness - or dimness - is all.

It is plainly isolating for the body (which is always deteriorating). But it is powerfully freeing for the spirit (which is always evolving). Acknowledge it. Accept it. And ultimately ally your self with it.

From here you will not be bothered by conflict, for you have resolved the one that matters most. The voice will advise you in dreams, and in the morning you will stoke your own fire, glowing warmly against the elements.

Now, and possibly for the first time, you will not be living; you will live.