Unwhole—filling a void
As I’m sitting here at my little perch in the library, a wave of loneliness has washed over me and I’m not quite certain as to why. Truthfully, that is a little bit of a lie. Part of me does know why I’m lonely but I don’t want to acknowledge it because it upsets me and makes me feel, not weak but lifeless and defeated. The break-up with L was really quite hard. I won’t go as far as to say that he was the first person that I ever truly cared about because that is certainly not true. I’ve cared deeply about one or two other guys in my life. However, it is the first reciprocal, defined relationship I’ve had. The first real committed relationship that I’ve ever had. That is a milestone and will always be viewed through rose-colored glasses.
I can look back now and see all the flaws and the warning signs, but in the moment I was so caught up in the thrill of being desired, wanted, and loved. I felt so special. I felt needed and I was validated. It’s a strange feeling, walking around thinking someone cares about me, not just as a friend, but as more. It’s an oddly intoxicating feeling. Truly it is just fulfilling one of the simplest human desires of connection on the deepest level—love is human. Having that ripped from me, honestly just really sucked. Especially since I don’t want to deny my feelings and how he made me feel. Those were real, not imaginary feelings. I didn’t feel alone when I was with him. I felt that I was a part of a reliable unit. I felt cared for, beautiful, and wanted. However, he also made me alone because I did isolate myself when I was with him. I sort of latched onto him and pushed other people out of my life. Looking back now, I realize that isn’t healthy that being part of a unit doesn’t mean ridding yourself of all the other support systems in your life. Too much time with one person, can be a problem within itself—distance allows for clarity.
Still, I really do feel like there is a void in my life and I’m not quite sure how to fill it. Is the void romantic or just a lack of a valid human connection? It’s not that I’m old, but I am getting older, parts of my life are coming to an end. I’m beginning to seek new types of relationships, more mature relationships. Relationships that I feel are more fulfilling that I don’t have to put so much work into. I am a giver, and too often I give so much of myself into relationships in my life before waiting and seeing if that person is willing to do the same. Part of it is simply how I view friendship. To me, friendship is a deep, emotional, personal relationship that is a give and take between two people. Someone to support and love you regardless of the challenges in your life and someone to celebrate the successes with you. I don’t enjoy superficial relationships and relationships that are petty and filled with drama. I want to meet people that care about the words I have to say, that care about my thoughts, that listen to me, that don’t make me feel little and worthless at times. Who have similar interests as me and don’t think of me as different simply because I like to read about composition theory.
Shockingly that is really hard to find.
I guess I’ve been prepared for this my whole life. My father always told me that you’re lucky to have one or two really good friends in your life. As a younger child and in high school I kinda brushed him off not really understanding his concept. I had lots of friends, my birthday parties were always packed. With all these friends came a lot of friction though and I ended up losing most of them along the way because I realized they weren’t true, close friends. They were just acquaintances, peripheral friends that floated on the sidelines of my life as observes. Friends for a season as I love to say. The older I get, the more I understand my dad’s concept. You’re lucky if you have one or two people in your life that are true, close friends. People that know you for who you are, maybe even better than you know yourself at times. The type of friends that will not turn and run away when life gets challenging but will weather the storm with you. The type of friend who isn’t afraid to challenge you and strives to make you better. Those type of friends are few and far between. Now, I feel like a lot of people would say this is a pessimistic attitude to have. But I think that it’s simply a realistic attitude to have.
Take my ‘friend’ C’s birthday party for example. First of all, C and I aren’t really friends. We’ve never hung out just the two of us, we have very little in common, we rarely communicate, honestly the only reason we’re friends is because we have mutual friends. Does that make someone your friend though? I don’t really think so. I really could’ve cared less about her party but Z was all: you have to go she’s your friend. When in reality I wanted to say. No, Z she’s your friend not mine. I really have very little interest in going and getting drunk with a bunch of people I don’t know.
And as much as I love Z. She still leaves me unfulfilled when we hang-out together. I feel like there is something missing. Maybe we’ve just grown distant. Perhaps it’s the fact that we have little in common. I like books and could spend hours talking about whether it is correct practice or not to read The Handmaid’s Tale as a colonial novel or not and she finds that boring. Our friendship isn’t always the most reciprocal. Regardless, I love her dearly. There is just something internally with me that is off and I recognize that.
A void.
That needs to be filled.
One thing I love more than anything else. Is stimulating conversation. Not gossip, not just mindless words, social media posts, talk about the latest trends but conversation that actually means something, that can impact you, that you’ll remember. When I find people that I have conversations like this with—I latch onto them because I find them to be true gems in this world that often don’t exist. Or are at least really hard to find.
And recently, I’ve found a few of these gems. And I love conversing with them.
I find that I put up a lot of walls. I find it very hard to be my full true self in front of people. Now, I don’t think, necessarily, that this is unique to me. We often put on specific, select faces or show certain sides ourselves to people. Like chameleons we blend into the people and culture around us. At its core, it’s a survival technique. Present the side of yourself that is least likely to get rejected. This saves face, ultimately saving you from a massive amount of embarrassment, shame, and rejection. When you present the correct face, you feel accepted, a part of the group, liked, and affirmed. Which are all feelings that we want to feel, but most of the time we believe that they can only be given to us by other people. It is natural to want acceptance from others, to fit in. We don’t want to feel alone. We don’t wish to be othered.
However, when we continually deny parts of ourselves or only choose to show them at certain times, we create this void within ourselves. We continually feel that something is missing because we are not whole. We are not one recognized person but many people fighting to live in harmony in one body— each unique part screaming for attention.
Theoretically, and ultimately, the goal would be to fill the void by ourselves. To knit these parts of ourselves back together, to become one, to be completely comfortable and confident on our own. And I’m not necessarily denying that I am not comfortable and happy by myself, although that is somewhat an oxymoron considering that I feel a void. I feel unwhole, uncomfortable in my own skin so how can I be confident and comfortable within my own skin without assistance?
But here is a question that I want to pose: do we have to fill the void by ourselves?
I personally believe that the answer is: no we don’t have to fill that void by ourselves. In fact, as a believer, I don’t think we are supposed to fill that void by ourselves. If we try, I don’t believe that we will ever be whole or satisfied but keep seeking more and that the void will continue to grow larger and larger.
First and foremost, I think that we should turn to the Lord to fill this void within us. For truly, He is the only one large enough to fill anything within us. His truth is the only pure and healing message that we can intake that can revive us, making us feel whole once more. The Lord accepts us, all of us. We don’t have to wear a mask for him. There is no need to save face. We are allowed to be our full self—including the ugly parts that we often wish to hide away. The parts that we are terrified of judgment from others, the fear of rejection this all melts away when it comes to the Lord into play because there is no way you can be rejected. Christ took all of that on at the cross. A miracle that I still wrap my head around today. So the one true thing that can fill this void is faith.
Trust in the Lord Almighty.
As Christians we are also called to be there for one another, to walk with one another in our faith. We’re not supposed to carry our burdens alone. A void is a burden. Why should we try to fill a void alone? Can that even be done? If we lay our burdens down at the cross and the feet of others, shouldn’t we do the same with this emptiness that we feel? We should seek out people who are life-giving and bring light into our life. People who breathe the Gospel into our soul and remind us that we are not worthless. People who say, I understand, I accept you fully for who you are a Child of God. While we might have our differences, we are also the same.
When you can be that open, that real with a person. The relationship becomes so much more fruitful than all of these surface level friendships that revolve around gossiping, going out to eat, shopping, and all this superficial wordiness that honestly I don’t have the time to care about.
I had a few of those relationships devolved. As people change and decide that they no longer value certain things that are very important to me. Also I’ve begun to learn that forming a friendship is super hard work. Again, as I was told by my mother as a child it takes years to truly get to know someone and then by my skeptical father and even then you might not really know them. There has been plenty of people throughout my past four years of college that I’ve thought I’ve known who have turned out to be completely different than what I perceived them to be. Which not going to lie is always a little jarring and upsetting. I’ve lost many ‘friendships’.
When I really think about it, I’ve had different friends almost every year of college. I’ve really only had about three people that I’ve stayed consistently close to and even those relationships have waxed and waned throughout the past four years. I’ve never really found the friends or relationships that I was seeking in college. I never found a ‘girl gang’. I never found a community of people to share my faith with. I’ve always envied other girls who found each other early on within their college career and bonded over their faith and their super cute and caring instagram posts that they’d share and write. Now, I realize this is social media here so I am being shown an image—who knows maybe these girls had a ton of problems and hate each other but I just have a feeling that’s not the case. I also have a feeling that if I was friends with these people, I would be a lot happier with my life and my overall college experience than I am now.
When I think about it though. I’ve always kinda had issues with friends. I’ve never really been part of a big group. I’ve always had issues with being bullied and never quite feeling as if I belonged. I’m sure I could trace all of this back to some deep insecurity that I have with having a chronic illness and how I’ve kinda of always felt ‘othered’. As though I didn’t belong. I knew that I wasn’t quite normal. I mean what four year old kid spends a majority of their time traveling around going to doctors in a bunch of different states and having biopsies done.
Answer: not many.
When you grow up this way, not only does it make it hard for others to relate to you (which I’d say is the main number one issue); however, it also makes it hard for me to relate to the ‘normal’ people because I don’t know what normal is. So then I must question: what is the real issue the fact that people can’t relate to me or that at times I have issues relating to them?
