Writer's Block Magazine

I do not consider myself to be a particularly lonely person. In fact, I remember times when I would drive myself, and my poor parents, crazy for just having to be home on a random weekend afternoon rather than out in the world with a couple of people that we cherished. I detested having to stay home and just exist there, it seemed pointless to me since we had so many people we could reach out to and arrange plans. Ignoring the part that would indeed be spending time with my lovely parents by staying home, it was the threat of loneliness’ silence that really irked me.

Today, I find myself collecting tremendous joy from this silence. Let me clarify what I mean by silence as I do not mean in any way that I sit alone, legs crossed, immersed in intense meditation, abstracted from the noises of the world. I mean silence in existing – just me and the noises of my world joined together in whatever activities I find myself in. Silence as in no companionship besides mine. 

Maybe it is a sign of growing up and growing into some version of a mature adult, but it has been in these moments that I have found myself healing. In times where I can pump the breaks on life and dive head first onto moments that transcend their everyday banality. It has been truly joyful to find a healing nature in these moments that I have reserved for myself alone. I have been finding life either reborn or at least more sturdy in the small things I allow myself to implement in life, hoping to make the journey a little less chaotic than it has been destined to be.

During one of my moments of silence I have come across the recent Screen Actors Guild awards ceremony where Timothée Chalamet, upon receiving the award for Outstanding Male Actor in a Leading Role for his impeccable role and interpretation of the great Bob Dylan earnestly confessed to be “really in pursuit of greatness”. Well, I am not an aspiring actress hoping to make it on the big screen and my dreams, despite their grandness, have not really trespassed the threshold of my own life, Chalamet’s words really resonated with the healing I have found in my own company lately and that I have been actively seeking in the decisions I have been making. 

I too am in pursuit of greatness in my own way, thoroughly enjoying the path towards it. While I am not an advocate for trekking this path alone, nor do I believe life is only itself in individuality, I do have to vouch for my recent liking of my own company, celebrating the progress that exists in taking a moment for yourself to do things solely for yourself. 

In the meantime, call your friends.

By Francisca Figueiras Meinedo