I am lonelier after some family gatherings than after entire weekends alone

Dear Delyara, Because there is so much surface and so little depth. The tea gets poured, the plates move, the stories repeat, the same roles get handed out, and I do my part in the choreography. I know how to participate. I know how to be warm, helpful, attentive, useful, even funny when needed. What I don’t know, in those rooms, is where the deeper self is supposed to go. So she doesn’t go anywhere. She stays mostly with me. And by the time I come home, I am lonelier than if I had simply had the house to myself all weekend. Solitude doesn’t always hurt. Partial contact sometimes does.