Want to know a secret? The real reason I go to Starbucks so often is that I don’t like spending time with myself. I hate it. I don’t want to face my demons. I people-watch and listen to life being lived around me so that I feel less alone. It distracts me from the fears that threaten not far beneath the surface.
I didn’t know how bad it was until the quarantine. There’s plenty to be concerned about, but the virus has indisputably brought most of our regular activity to a halt. I’d venture to say, for most of us, it’s an unwelcome but oh so necessary halt. For me, slowing down exposed just how deep my feeling of loneliness was.
When my boss told me that we would be working off a “skeleton crew”--when the first friend that I made here in Spain told me that she was going back to the states--my heart sank. I cried. Not because I was thinking of the magnitude of the virus. Not because I was concerned about my coworkers’ safety. Not even because I was worried about my own health. No. I cried at the thought of not being able to go out for days (little did I know it would be over a month!) to entertain myself with friends, company, and--one of my favorite hobbies: people-watching.
I’m going to be alone, my mind screamed. The silence is going to suffocate me. I’m going to mope on my bed, wishing a friend was there to make me laugh. And at the same time, I’ll be too proud to admit to anyone that I’m struggling. These upcoming weeks are going to be torture...
The odd thing was, I wasn’t hurting for things to do. I had a list. (I love lists. I could write you a list of reasons why I enjoy lists...and I would enjoy writing it.) Work out, bake, read, write this blog that you’re reading...
And it’s not like I’d never been alone before; that’s a part of life. But over the last year, alone time had become nauseating. I could probably write a book on my woes of last year, but I don’t think I would even want to read it. To put it in a very long sentence: I was stressed out because a rocky family situation had gotten even rockier, I was about to move out of the country for a two-year job, I was not great at communication with my boyfriend so things were tense, and I was having a millennial crisis wondering where all my close, meaningful friendships had gone and if I had missed the bus for figuring out what I was going to do with the rest of my life.
The weight of all those issues culminated into an existential dread of the future whenever I was home alone. My mind didn’t really wander through all those fears, nor did it fixate on one fear and snowball. The feeling was nebulous, but it enveloped me. It was an emotion that I couldn’t name in the moment. I tried more than once to describe it to those close to me, but what it really boiled down to was a certainty that I was unwanted and all alone and that my life was not going to be ok.
So alone time in a new country with a new language and a new group of people sounded like a round two recipe for anxiety. I knew it would make me explore parts of myself that, frankly, I was ignoring and hoping for the best: my poor time management, my hypocrisy in my priorities--but most of all, my unhealthy reliance on distraction to protect me from loneliness. Loneliness that led to questions like: Is God really here? Because the silence seems to say that He’s not. Do I really believe my life is going to turn out okay? With all the chaos going on right now, do I really think I matter--to my friends, to my family, to God? The stillness of quarantine has revealed the ugly truth that, when all the noise stops, my answer to those questions is a faint but threatening “no.”
We usually avoid heavy questions and feelings like these because they seem too painful to explore. Uncertainty and tragedy are the very reasons some people avoid faith in a “higher power.” Life knocks us down and leaves us with a lot of unanswered questions. Lofty ideas like hope, faith, and love get crushed by the weight of heartbreak, loss, and loneliness.
But I want a faith confident enough to survive any season. I want to know I’m loved even when I don’t feel loved. I want to know I’m not alone even when I can’t see or hear another soul. So when the lockdown started and I couldn’t hide from my feelings anymore, it became obvious that something needed to change. What turned the tide was that I stopped assuming that the silence meant God and all my friends were ignoring me. I decided to calm my mind and really listen, even if what I heard made me uncomfortable.
And I discovered that, all too often, I rest all my security on my abilities and the affirmation of others, and when those things fail me, I feel let down and insecure. I doubt that my life will turn out all right. I doubt that there’s really a God who loves me. And if there is one, I doubt that He means it when He says He’ll never leave me.
But the truth is that my abilities and others’ affirmation are going to fail me. I’m not even big enough to reach the top shelf in the kitchen without a stool. How could I control the future--even just my own? And as amazing as my friends and family are, they’re human. Even if their love was never selfish (which it is sometimes) and their affirmation was without gap (which it’s not), they would not be enough to satisfy my soul. Ultimately, we were not designed to find our whole identity in other people, but rather our creator and who He says we are.
It can be scary to admit to ourselves that we have doubts: about how loved we are, how our futures will turn out, about God--and even scarier to bring those doubts to God. (My thought is usually something like, What if He gets mad and smites me?!) It’s a bit silly, I know, but I’m not the only one. Our human instinct is to hide the uglier parts of ourselves.
But the God I believe in already knows those ugly parts are there. He made my heart. He knows it. He knows me. He knows you! He’s not afraid of the weeds that take root in there, because He’s bigger than them. His truth is a light to outshine the dark lies we fall prey to. Hiding our real thoughts and feelings from Him does nothing for us but keep us from finding out who He really is.
Being restricted from Starbucks for over a month was certainly not my cup of tea (sorry I had to!). And even for those who love alone time, the effects of isolation and social distancing will get to you eventually. It’s tempting to keep ignoring the nagging feelings that alone time brings out, but I’m taking this strange season as an opportunity to grow, to be painfully honest with myself, and to invite God into the loneliness and doubts that live in my heart. It’s been a challenge, but such a rewarding one. Would you join me?
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