I was surrounded all day and still felt untouched

Dear Delyara, I spent the whole day around people. Conversations. Meetings. Noise. Replies. Practical exchanges. Small laughter. Ordinary human contact. And still, at the end of it, I came home with that same old ache in my chest. I think that’s because company and contact are not the same as being reached. I can be included and still feel emotionally untouched. I can be spoken to without feeling known. I can participate without being met. That is the kind of loneliness I carry most often now. Not empty-room loneliness. Unreached loneliness.