Lonely or alone?

As I sit here on my own, well, not entirely on my own, I have a snoozing kitty by my side, I have begun thinking about the difference between being lonely and being alone.
I'm sure greater minds than mine have addressed this question over the years and have no doubt come up with great philosophical treatises on the subject and that's fine, but you are now about to be regaled with my simplistic waffle on how I see the difference.
I have felt very lonely at times in quite large gatherings. Particularly where I've felt somehow out of place, Thanksgiving at my ex parents-in-law for instance as a foreigner celebrating the survival of people who left my country and whose descendants rebelled against her. That sounds a bit harsh and isn't exactly what I'm trying to get across. What I mean is that I felt alien, odd and somehow not needed. They didn't go out of their way to make me feel that way, in fact just the opposite but there I had an underlying feeling that they were somehow better than me because they had moved on. I don't know, I'm making a bad job of explaining.
A better example of loneliness perhaps is a more recent occurrence; I was on a train to Edinburgh surrounded by a group of women who had all known each other for a long time and were off to celebrate the 50th birthday of one of their number. One of these women said, very loudly as they were all quite 'happy' "we are all in relationships, we should have a get-together somewhere with all our partners....". At that point I tuned her out somewhat as the realisation hit me that I was on my own in life without a partner. To me, that was loneliness right there.
At other times I sit in the house or maybe in a pub whilst I'm away travelling, my trip to Las Vegas being a good example and think to myself that although I'm alone, I'm not lonely. I am enjoying my solitude and the peace it brings. It doesn't have to be a quiet place, I can be alone and content in the loudest of bars, I just sit in my little world and enjoy my introspection, watching the world go by.
I think loneliness comes when perhaps one expects to be in company and it turns out that although the people are there they are more interested in each other than in you or, as I said earlier you have little or nothing in common with those you are amongst.
I am not explaining myself very well but there is a big difference between being alone and being lonely. I'm just not very good at putting across what that difference is. I suppose we all react differently to our particular circumstances and what makes some people feel lonely frees others to be content in their solitude.
Still, I hope that people can learn to enjoy being alone as well as being in company and get the best out of all situations. One of the worst feelings in the world is feeling alone in a crowd and I hope that if I come across someone looking lost and alone I can help them to be free from the sadness that can bring and be clever enough to tell the difference between someone feeling lonely in a crowd and someone enjoying their solitude.
Anyway enough of this rambling, I may well try to revisit this subject another time and hope that I can convey my thoughts a little more clearly.
Until then, Peace and Love ttfn x

Here's one.

Writer's Block

I don't know what to write,

the blank page is my foe.

I stare at the expanse of paper

watching it grow.

Blankness, blankness,

no idea what to say, where to go.

Will I ever write another word?

I really do not know.

Ground to a halt.

It would appear that apart from my daily journal which I write by hand in a notebook my attempts at writing have ground to a shuddering halt.
My poetry sits neglected in the office upstairs and in a variety of small notebooks dotted around the place, a series of half-started stories sit weeping alone in said office or on Google Drive whilst poor old Bob West and his lovely wife languish somewhere in the mid-West of the USA waiting for my instructions. Even this blog has sat alone in bars staring morosely at its drink wondering what went wrong with it's relationship with me.
So what to do? Step one I guess is what I'm doing now, rescuing my poor blog from its lonely existence and writing something on it.
Step two is get the poems going, step three, sit down over the weekend and get poor old Bob on the move. As to the rag-bag of other stories and tales, they will have to wait their turn until Bob has reached a good stopping point. His tale is a series of short stories so I should be able to finish the first one; he just got married and discovered his wife was pregnant so that would be a good place to finish this part of his life. The baby can be born and I'll revisit him when they have settled down a bit and start a new episode.
In the meantime I'll see what I can rescue from the wreckage of all the others and maybe get a one-off done. Since this weekend is not looking too clever for gardeneering I may as well get going again with my literary aspirations and share that with having a clear out in the spare room.
I shall return next week with an update.
Until then, Peace and Love. ttfn x

The future revisited.

Do you remember what I wrote the other day about my feelings in relation to the future? I was talking shite.

ttfn

The future.

A thought just struck me a couple of minutes ago about how I'm looking at my feelings and emotions. I do have low moods and feelings of anxiety at times but what struck me was that I may have been interpreting the anxious feelings wrongly.
Could it be that what I'm experiencing is not fear or foreboding but expectation? Quite often the worry that I feel is not about a tangible event that is on the horizon but some unknown occurrence which could just as well be good as bad.
I can understand worrying about doctors appointments or dental exams where I know there is the possibility that there will be pain or discomfort involved, but the unknown, the future, should hold no fear, rather it should hold optimism and hope.
Who said the future should be bad? There is no reason why one can't look at what is to come with the hope of happiness rather than the expectation of misery. Sometimes these things are a self-fulfilling prophecy, if one expects doom and gloom maybe that is what you will get. If one looks forward to the future and expects harmony and happiness perhaps that is the more likely outcome.
I don't know. There is sadness and unhappiness in the world, but equally there is much fun and happiness. We can't manage the future, what comes our way comes our way whatever we do, all we can do is try to look for the positives and be optimistic.
I may of course be talking utter tripe but you never know. On that note, be positive; Love and Peace. ttfn x

The best laid plans.

I was all geared up to cut the grass and do a spot if light weeding today until I awoke to a damp morning which knocked that idea on the head. Instead I have been sitting around reading and thinking and generally doing a whole lot of not very much.
My main thinking has been around the trip I would like to take for my birthday week in October and so I've been putting my mind to the various possibilities. Now I know I said I was going to live in the day and not plan too much but I think such trips do need to be planned for so here I am looking on the various trip booking, hotel and airline websites to get an idea of cost. It isn't a cheap activity to travel these days so I may well have to put off my ideal trip, a return to Vegas until another day and cut my cloth a little closer. Having said that, a trip to Vegas for 7 nights is not much more than some trips to the near Continent. This is mainly because the hotels in Vegas tend to be cheaper and they offset the higher transatlantic air fares whilst most of the hotels in Europe are somewhat higher even though the flights are cheaper.
Anyway, enough of that, what I am trying to say is that I need a trip for my birthday week and can't decide where to go. Mind you, in my opinion a good proportion of the fun of travelling is in the planning although some may disagree so that isn't a problem for me.
This year my birthday falls on a Wednesday and as that was the day of the week I was actually born on it will be 56 years to the day on the 15th October when I arrived to bring fun, happiness and a degree of misery to all those I have encountered.
Back to the trip; having set aside Vegas as a destination I am now looking for inspiration and as it is October when I plan to travel it would be best I should say to go somewhere warm. I am toying with Malta or Gibraltar at the moment so I think I'll go now and look up those particular destinations and see what's what. Don't be surprised though to find that I've decided on Vegas. Even though I say I've discounted it for now you just never know. I'm in love with the place for some unaccountable reason so there is always a voice in the back of my mind saying "go to Vegas".
Still, all will be revealed in good time so until then, Love and Peace. ttfn x