The Loneliest Part of My Life Is How Often I Am Needed Without Being Truly Met

Dear Delyara, I think that sentence explains more than almost anything else. My life is full of contact. Family, work, children, practical conversation, messages, voices, people coming toward me with needs, thoughts, questions, requests, problems, updates. I am not living in social emptiness. And still, by night, I can feel a profound emotional loneliness that all that contact has not touched. Because being needed is not the same as being seen. Being used for steadiness is not the same as being emotionally received. Being loved in role is not always the same as being met in self. That gap is where so much of my sadness lives now. And it is hard to explain because from the outside, I am surrounded. Only the inside knows how untouched I can still remain.