Radio nowhere

Radio Nowhere from Bruce Springsteen's 2007 album, Magic, is a song I keep coming back to. I can't believe it's been that long since this album came out. It feels timeless. So, too, is my timeless struggle with solitude. 

I have a brief respite from the solitude, but I'll be thrust out into it once again. I'm like a lone rocketeer being catapulted into space or a wilderness wanderer on a mission that's never completed. I keep sending my signals back to home, wherever that is, but I never hear anything. Just silence. 

One of the strangest fates mankind can succumb to is sensory deprivation. Radio Nowhere makes it clear that we all need noise. We all need to home in on something. In my being spat out into the darkness and cold of solitude, I've tried to stay warm with thoughts of the woman I love. I've continued to broadcast my beacon for all who will hear. My thoughts and feelings have turned to stories and my stories into a book of sorts. In my book are all of my hopes and dreams dashed on a proverbial shore, and I am nowhere to be found. I've set sail into another storm.  

Is it time for another bout with solitude? I can feel it pulling me into the night, dragging me like I'm paralyzed into a distant unknown to feast upon my tender parts. Will I still broadcast from the edge of the world, from my perilous place in the coldness of space? Sometimes I wonder if anyone hears me at all. Where is God in all of this? Where are all those whom I have shown love? Are they all paralyzed like me, lost in the heart of a similar storm? 

Is it time for me to turn to silence as a salve? I've put many and varied demons on trial here on my blog, but I've not made progress as quickly as I wanted. I have cast my bread upon the waters for years, and what has come back to me? So I will be silent. I've exposed myself and found little has changed. Maybe I've served the wrong god. Maybe nothing needs to be said. What's done is done. It is what it is. The rest of my life is just dealing with it. And, fittingly, in silence. 

The thing about silence and solitude that scares people is that something strange happens. We feel the lack of stimulation, sure, but something else occurs. In silence, things rise. In solitude, the things we've chosen to ignore choose us. There is no running. There is no blocking out. There is no walking away. It sits there as plainly as our reflection in the mirror and demands answers, and, most likely, we don't have the answers. 

I know someone has the answers, though. When the silence comes and the questions with it, I will turn those questions over to someone more capable. When I was a young man and I had so much time to myself, I was scared. I admit it. I sought a woman to fill that silence. I imagined her with me, a faceless entity to fill space and to break the silence. As an older man, I see the error of my way. While I still think about sharing my life with someone, I'm in no hurry to fill a perceived void. I'm not going to force a connection. 

Psychology says you must do the thing that is uncomfortable for you. You must face the thing that you fear in order to grow. You may not have the tools with which to order the orderless, but you will gain them. You will learn how to adapt. The amount of solitude I've had in the last year has been unprecedented and unforeseen. There will be more. And I will survive. It's up to me whether or not I thrive. As this year draws to a close, I feel blind and numb. I can't see the future. I can't even imagine my way out of this dark night. But I know nothing will get better if I sit on my hands and do nothing. So into the night, dark and cold, I go. I will let go of more and more and more until I am less and less and less. But I will know the truth I failed to learn as a young man, for better or for worse.