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I grew up completely detatched from religion. Rejecting the idea of it, even. Not understanding how anyone would believe in some divine creator, much less how someone would allow themselves to be guilted and governed by His rules. I saw it as a body of control and conflict and blame. In some ways, I still do. But I see now that things are rarely all bad or all good.
I've recently been relishing in my free will, going places alone, allowing myself the quiet, unhurried compassion my parents never gave. And I have noticed that I find myself drawn into old churches. They are, undeniably, beautiful. Sometimes in a grand, golden, organ-blasting way. And sometimes in a still, stale, patient way, with crumbling walls and worm-eaten wood, and the echoes of others who wandered in across the years. I have started, perhaps, to understand how the grandeur of it all, how feeling part of something much bigger than yourself, allows you to draw inwards, quietly, intimately - only yourself, and all that you cannot see, are listening.
As I have aged, I have definitely shed some nihilism. I am less afraid of others. I am less ashamed. I seek sensuality and meaning.
In the winter just gone, I sat in a pub with someone I was starting to love, both of us on the same side of the table. A teapot and a half-pint of cider between us. Warm lights and condensation hanging on the windows. We started talking about death, and how I was afraid of it. Afraid of everything ending, everything only existing because I exist to experience it. I think you found that silly and selfish. It made you feel better to think that those you admire lived and died before you, with you. You explained how people outlive themselves in others' memories, in the way they change each other. And now I like to think that I changed the world a little because I loved you.
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New flat, new bed, new shoes. New walk home in the dark through streets with wide pavements and tall houses and stained glass doors,
Damp air carries the scent of magnolia pollen, trees flowering in every other front garden,
These streets feel safe to the point of sterility
I want to lie in the road like the felled tree and think about things I can't change
And I think, I think I’d be fine. I’d get up and go home and go to bed
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Recently (and also before recently) I have been thinking about being alone, and how, unfortunately, I hate it.
I am assured that some people like to be alone, often even. But when the people I love go home, I feel somewhat lost in my own head. Some lady on youtube told me I may be using social situations to avoid having to work on my unhealthy mindset and poor relationship with myself. Hmmmm.
Last week, in the strange liminal space between christmas and new year, I was off work, my plans kept getting cancelled, and I just needed to leave the house - so I went alone to the Barbican.
Something I often come back to in moments of loneliness is the poem 'How to be Alone' by Tanya Davis, (performed here by Andrea Dorfman). It makes me feel ... inspired? comforted? jealous?? I'm not sure. At 2 am I sat in bed and scribbled down all my thoughts as I read the poem through. It helped me understand what I was feeling a bit more.
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