Lonesome

A man I admire once said being alone isn't loneliness. Like him, I am comfortable in my own head. Mostly. I can spend hours in tree watching for that brown silhouette to come passing by. I can sit with my own thoughts, or lack thereof, as I watch pineys chittering off against each other or birds swooping and chirping the branches around me. 

Alone, I am me. More than any other time. And, for the most part, I'm good with that. 

In my younger years I spent hours trekking through the woods around my home in upstate New York. Hours upon hours. 

But there were times, as I grew, that being alone took on the shade of loneliness. I struggled with notions of who I was and what I should be. I think most kids go through this. 

Now, now it's a plague. Lost is the idea of being who you are and having purpose. So warped have things become that they are faced with degradation of self. Cut down by anyone who fears being them or believes they are more, better than others. 

Since I took up hunting, I've learned a lot about myself. I can usually tolerate the bitter cold and go home empty handed and still be at peace. I can sit quiet, still as a statue. Or stalk through the thick and muck of the deep overgrowth in marshes. Either way, I am at peace. 

Not always so. And sometimes those old haunting feelings try to keep in. 

In my mid-teens I hiked off to a spot that my brother and I had groomed for camping. The walk to this special place was nearly an hour in through the woods on a high hill. With just a bedroll, tent, and my little dog I tramped out this place, setting sun beaming through the canopy. I was in my place. Just me and my little furry friend. 

Sometime in the night the weather turned like fiend. Wind lashed and rain threatened to drown everything. So thick were the clouds that only the light from brief vicious strikes of lightning shown where I was. 

Alone. All alone. And lonesome. 

The thin fabric of the tent was sponge rather than a shield, soaking in the torrents. Everything inside was sloshing wet. Figuring home, a warm dry bed was better than waiting it out in the cold, wet confines of my flimsy tent, I scooped up my dog and flashlight and made a break down the hill. The flashlight died only a few paces from where I was moments before. The dog, frantic, wriggled and struggled in my arms. Stumbling through the dark and storm ridden night, I pressed on. I lost my way. The path completely erased by the deluge. 

Twice I fell. Hard. Once loosing the leash for my dog; the second, my glasses. Now with the storm hurling violence at the ground below, I more blind than before and my dog whimpering in the thundering darkness, desperate to be safe and sound. 

Hours seemed to pass. The trek home a journey through a proverbial shadow of death. Or so I thought. And felt. 

Storms come. Storms pass. They can wreak havoc and decimate whole towns in their wrath, scattering everything it touches. But in the end, they will dissipate. 

Loneliness is a storm. It can come on in an instant and unleash a hell of emotions. And most times, it will dissipate. 

I could have chosen to sit, wet, shivering, cradling my poor dog and waited in misery for what seemed to be an unending storm to pass and bring quiet and calm. Eventually the sun would rise and I would be able to see my way home, miserable and worse for wear. And alone.

I chose to brave the wilderness, the dark and foreboding. I trudged through the muck, the briars and thickets pushing through the miasma of the unknown. My only goal - home. Safety of family, warmth of the house, secure against the torrents and ripping winds. Even though I lost my vision (literally in some respects) and my bearings, I wanted to be with someone more than I wanted to be alone in the mess of weather beating me down.

Sometimes choosing not to be alone is the means to fight the loneliness. But getting there is a fight, an exercise in motion away from what you don't want towards where you want to be - not alone.

Make no mistake, I never looked back. I barely stopped long enough to feel for the glasses flung from my face by some whipping branch snatching at my face. And I was mad. Angry. I railed at the storm, at the thickets and briars, the wind, the rain. At myself. And to no useful end. 

Had I kept my calm, cool and collected, I still may have lost my glasses. Probably would've lost my footing and fallen more than once. That's the problem with the darkness. You can't see. Anything. But I knew where home was. And my hope, the hope that drove me, was knowing by morning I would be with family. I would be warm and dry again. And not alone. Not lonely.

This make not help those struggling with loneliness. Because sometimes trying to fight through it isn't enough. There's no relief. Hope seems a far off thing. 

But I learned something about myself. I was alone and I was lonely. But in the scheme of things, I was not always alone. And I didn't need to be. Family was near - through the dark, through the storm, yes. But they were near. In the midst of the storm that notion was of little comfort. On the other side, when the sun rose and skies cleared, the truth was all the more - they were near to me. Maybe they didn't know what I went through; had no idea the pain and agony and fear I endured. But they loved me. They care. 

There is no greater teacher than experience. And failure is its friend. Either choice I made: stay or go, was a failure. Neither was of my own making. I could not change or stop the storm. I could only endure it and press on to something greater. Storms are like that, we are powerless against them. But we chose to move in the midst of the blinding rain and roaring winds. We can choose to endure and survive and learn and live. 

Every time I am in a stand or hanging in my saddle, I am reminded that I am not alone even though I'm hunting in a lone tree, watching the wildlife and land do as it has done for eons, living life and adapting. And as that lone deer comes underneath and passes by, I know there is a herd, a family nearby. Maybe not where I can see, but close enough that when it's ready, it will return. And its aloneness will pass.