Cellophane

It depends. There are different kinds of lonely, aren’t there?

There’s the quiet kind. It’s almost light. It’s the soft realisation that nobody has understood you for quite a while - in fact, you’re not really sure when you last felt understood. It settles around you like a blanket and you let it. It’s a return to familiarity.

When I feel like this, I go for a walk, or write a poem, and think a lot. Usually, I realise that it is an impossible task to expect anybody to understand me completely but I am understandable in fragments to different people at different times and that is okay. The most important thing is that I understand myself.

There is the specific kind. When you feel isolated or left out or unloved by a particular person or group of people. When you don’t understand why. When you feel that there must be something wrong with you, something different or awkward that makes you difficult to love. It’s heavy and shameful.

When I feel like this, I think about my perceived differences and realise that I have people in my life who are grateful for them. I think about whether I am truly being excluded or whether I’ve just interpreted a situation in that way because of my defense mechanisms. And I talk to my loved ones because everybody needs a reminder that they’re loveable from time to time.

Finally, there is a violent kind of lonely. It is desperate. Chronic. Hopeless. For me, it accompanies a period of being continuously misunderstood. Being called selfish when you were trying to be selfless. Being called cruel when you thought you were acting out of kindness. Being called defensive when you were trying to communicate. Being told you didn’t care when you know you did. It isolates you from everyone, even you from yourself. This is when you begin to wonder whether people really mean it when they say they love you.

A postcard has led experts to identify the place where Vincent van Gogh likely painted his final masterpiece.

Damian Elwes is one of the most talented artists of the past 75-years.
Here are some selections from his collection of works of other artists’ studios and homes:

in your journal, on every other page, you find yourself writing the same thing. i just want to be loved. the universe is loving, you tell yourself. you are loved. but the hole still yawns and the desire still ekes out and the hollow still rings, over and over. your ex told you once - all the love in the world won’t fill you up because there’s no bottom to your cup.