“One night, lying in bed, I thought, ‘We’re never happy.’ Like when you’re alone, going from flower to flower, not getting attached to anyone, you’re unhappy because you’re lonely. And when you’re in a long relationship, you think ‘I’m bored of this’. I thought it would be good to have both feelings in one track.” — Stromae, Multitude (Track-by-Track).
A few months ago, I started attending college physically, and almost instantly felt at home. I was surrounded by this institution, by the greenery of flowers blooming in the transition from spring to summer, by people buzzing all around me, and cats playing with my fingertips. The books at the library invited me to knowledge, and the people calling my name and addressing me made me feel special. But as a few days ran by, I noticed that groups were made, friends were chosen, tables were already being shared at the canteen — and I wasn’t really a part of their world, was I? I’m the student who studies, who reads, who is always on the front bench. In full view of the teacher, telling her ideas and loving her subjects. I didn’t really belong in their back-benches, ‘let’s go on a platonic date’, skipping lectures and taking photos all day.
That’s when I thought of solitude.
“Singlehood makes me suffer from solitude/ Couple lifе makes me suffer from wеariness.” —Stromae, La Solassitude.
Solitude is loneliness that is not sad; a kind of place where one could finally enjoy their own company, to be by yourself and not experience any sort of sadness over the lack of people around you. As I faced this particular reality that I couldn’t truly belong to anyone in real life, that I cannot find my own niche of friends that could see beyond the exterior in my classroom, I realized that I could be alone. And enjoy my own company. Because hadn’t I lived that way before? In school, with my books, disconnected from the happenings of the class and the shrill voices of our people. Hadn’t I lived this way before, when my friends in school would go off with their own friends and I filled that emptiness without them with heaps of stories I would consume? I kept asking of myself to hope for this solitude, fill this space people will fill with more stories, and demanding this heart of mine to harden, to bear. To be in solitude with yourself (la solitude) and not become bothered of the other person within yourself (la lassitude).
“My love, it's been eight years, not so easy everyday/ It's not by lack of feelings, we're still loving each other but in an other way/ We sleep in the same bed but we gradually move away/ Feels like I became transparent, and if you would find a lover?”
“The world is entire,/ and I’m outside of it,/ crying,—” — The Waves, Virginia Woolf
But what could this heart do but hope for human touch? For all my fortitude, I am human. I couldn’t stop my eyes from grazing across people who can belong so easily to each other, from this pit in my soul widening to a cliff. I yearn for belonging, I yearn to be called one’s very own. I know I’ve said this a billion times, in a billion years, but my heart of now knows it deserves to belong. It does deserve love, and it wants people, pushes me towards people. But there’s the fear that people would eventually leave me with my heart that searches for bonds to last (‘if we stay here the whole weekend/ will you still find me attractive?’), that I’d be left behind in this race of both connections and degrees. Sometimes I think about this half-state, where I yearn for peoplehood and yet don’t want to be human at the same time; when solitude is to be sought and to be with friends is also sought.
“Why do people have to be this lonely? What’s the point of it all? Millions of people in this world, all of them yearning, looking to others to satisfy them, yet isolating themselves. Why? Was the earth put here just to nourish human loneliness?” —Sputnik Sweetheart, Haruki Murakami
One of the lines of Stromae’s ‘La Solassitude’ is ‘the issue is routine, when days sound like the others/ what is killing me is boredom, will we end up together?’ and it perhaps seeks to remind me that I’m not bored of this world. I don’t want to be bored of this world. I love it for what it is; for its greenery, the cats, the hidden words that my hands ease out of the walls, the broken sunflowers that I try to protect with my palms as it goes from one realm to the next. And if I can ever love this world in all its might, I have to love the people, too. For the cordial smiles they offer me, for the handshakes and the mutual respect my art and passion is given. I need to love this world with people, even if it means I won’t ever have a chance to truly belong and comfort people.
Because the stupid heart, this heart, hopes that it will belong to someone, somewhere.
Until next time, dear reader. I will see you regularly now, every Thursday.