I'm sitting in double-seat alone on an Amtrak, if you don't count my fuzzy companion/neck pillow, Mr. Bear, as a living being. OK...he isn't, but the point I'm trying to get to is that though I'm alone on this journey, something about it is speaking to me.
It's beautiful, watching the world literally roll by your window. Watching the sun set, rise within a day's travel. Watching people stroll by, feigning solitude with the false barriers of iPods and cell phones, having the realization here and there that there are more than 300 people between the four cars that they could be socializing with. This is why I take the train home. Sure it costs me a day and a half of travel time, but I see time as expendable anyway, especially when you're enjoying yourself.
Even still, though I am enjoying myself, a large part of me wonders how long I'll have to do this alone. Explore. Discover. Realize. Learn. Love the world. Love me....
I have no shortage of interested men, but I do have standards lol (please see previous postings to see what those might be). For some time, I thought I'd found someone (often against my better judgment) who could replace "Mr. Bear " (and then some), but the one thing I've learned over the past few years was that you can't control the way people feel about you without manipulating the situation in one way or another. Long story short, as far as love goes, I've definitely gone organic; if it doesn't come naturally, I'm on to the next pick.
Moving on from that situation, both mentally and now physically (literally), I don't feel freedom or excitement. It's rather bittersweet. Sometimes the potential for love can be more intriguing than actually obtaining or pursuing it. For one, that phase of potentiality is like no other moment in love, other than what I assume is the moment when you discover you could be with that one person for the rest of your life. Losing that is almost as bad as a break up (almost...) but at the expense of more important things, the loss is well worth it.
Coming back to the present--the train--aloneness is something most of us are born into, just as many of us will die alone. I acknowledge my aloneness, but I refuse to accept loneliness as a condition. I realize that I have too much to offer the world to be lonely and, as a result, selfish with my joy --and my pain. While for now the journey of life for me has been alone (for the most part), I have a feeling that someone out there is waiting for me to come around the bend. Saving a seat for me...and Mr. Bear.
Markeysha Dawn Davis
Doctoral Candidate
W. E. B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies
University of Massachusetts Amherst
(313) 318-1831
mddavis@afroam.umass.edu
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