On Loneliness and Feeling Content

I sat there staring at my laptop trying to force back down the lump in my throat. The tears swell up in my eyes and my hands start to shake. I can't bring myself to say it and feel my body stiffen. I look to the ground, the shame blanketing me.

"I'm not okay. It's been hard. I'm trying but it's been so hard."

And that's when I broke down.

I've always thought I was someone who strong, capable, and brave. Someone who can adapt to different environments and be confident in who I am as a person.

But loneliness is an intriguing thing.

You want to be inducted as a member of a group, but you're not sure how to. You crave to be part of a team, and yet the puzzle pieces these just don't seem to match with yours. That desire for human connection, to vent and talk about how you feel, but that person isn't there. 

Moving to a new city, with a new job, new people, new environment, without any familiar family and friends, is hard. Physically here in Singapore, but mentally somewhere else. Somewhere where the manoosh bread is fresh out of the oven, where the where the home address ends with the post code 2144. Everything felt so distant and it was isolating. I was in a state of confusion, not fitting in, and not sure what was going on.

There have been so many times where I've broken down so hard and cried during the first few months. Yep. In the bathroom. At the bus stop. On the train. I ask myself, 'why am I here?', 'why did I make this decision?'.  When the loneliness feels so engulfing that it swallows you up whole and doesn't let you speak. The pain becomes so ambiguous and you're not sure what is causing it, where it is coming from, and most importantly, how to make it leave your mental state.

As I pushed forth and onward into my role, I realised this negative mindset was not beneficial and it wasn't changing anything. Perhaps the regular manoosh was now 6,787km away, along with my beloved family and friends, but I also now had durian at the fruit shop infront of my block, a plethora of opportunities to meet new people and try new things, and the ability to go back and visit good ol' Sydney every 3 months (Alhamdulilah, very grateful for this).

So to cut the long, sappy story short, I've learnt is that all you can do is be you, accept the circumstances you are in, create opportunities to overcome the loneliness and you'll become somewhat comfortable. I've rekindled my love for craft through workshops, offered my time and service to local NGO's, and spoke to anyone who was kind enough to listen at running events.

Through this process, and through crafts and travels and words and perhaps even a cup of warm tea, I'm learning. It's hard, but man am I grateful for the ride. Better for it.