All I've Loved I've Loved Alone

From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were; I have not seen
As others saw; I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
And all I loved, I loved alone.
Then- in my childhood, in the dawn
Of a most stormy life- was drawn
From every depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still:
From the torrent, or the fountain,
From the red cliff of the mountain,
From the sun that round me rolled
In its autumn tint of gold,
From the lightning in the sky
As it passed me flying by,
From the thunder and the storm,
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view.

This is one of my favourite poems by Edgar Allan Poe. It it simply titled Alone, but conveys so much more than that. Loneliness is an awful thing. It is something that I cherish above much else while at the same time it is one of the things that I fear most. Don't ask me how it's possible to be both enamoured with my own loneliness and yet afraid of it. I don't really know. Loneliness threatens me with silent threats. It traps me in deep musings of utter nonsense, musings that I try to communicate as some strange inspiration. I often go to others, a small select group comprising of my social life, in an attempt to withdraw myself from my loneliness. But still it haunts me. So then I go to a special person and in her I try to find comfort for my loneliness. But still it haunts me. Why? Well, for one thing I have to leave my cliques and I have to leave my friend at some point. So that once again, when alone (but even when with them) I can feel awfully alone. Perhaps I should simply accept it. You know, sort of as if it were my fate or some such thing. My favourite line of the piece reads, "And all I loved, I loved alone." Perhaps thats the way it should be. Because of my artistic bent towards life and a more introspective temperament I should learn to use my melancholy loneliness to my advantage. I often do. Some of my best work is produced in utter loneliness. Yet at the same time I hate it. I'm afraid of it. I know there is more. I know that there is love. I know that there is worth. I know that there is admiration. I know that there are friends. I know I don't need to be alone. Yet another part of me also realizes that there are times where I can't help being alone. This is not a lesson with a moral or happy ending. It is simply a reflection of my own loneliness as even now I feel it. It is a loneliness that no one can appease. Not my friends, not my family, and not even that special someone that makes my heart smile. No. None of them will do. God helps, of course, He helps. But I still feel lonely. Can I overcome this loneliness? Sometimes I don't think I can. Let me pray now, "Lord, Help my unbelief." I can learn not to be lonely. He hasn't orphaned me. He will never leave me nor forsake me. And there must be someone with whom I can share what I love. It needn't be that all I love I love alone. There must be a friend out there in whom I can confide. There must be a lover out there with whom I can grow intimate. There must be.