…sometimes we suck at communicating.
When loneliness strikes, we talk to every part of our world, inside and imagined. We’ll update statuses. Talk to random folks. Apologize to the vegetables when we slit sacs, spill seeds.
We put ourselves in words because the silence offends more than a microphone twang.
Talking doesn’t absorb loneliness, though. Talking only pokes the silence. How others respond to our pokes is what completes the cycle; what buffers the echoes. How others respond to our pokes depends on how well we’ve been listening. Listening begins the moment we shush. And the silence melts into a smile, an eye contact, or a hug.