I think a lot of us, most of us even, can get to feeling all alone in the world, misunderstood, lost, disconnected. The new DSM-5 is chock-full of  conditions that echo themes of dissociation. 

I don’t just mean loneliness, although that may have its own label by now too. It’s that sense that you exist in a void, un-touching and untouched. And some of it is real, I mean, nobody can read your mind, and you do exist within yourself as someone nobody else can truly know fully. Yes, you sigh in relief. Who wants to be that exposed? I know. 

In the journey to be daring and put “myself” out there more, there’s still a line that won’t be crossed. 
Life is funny. So many of us bounce from existence to existence, school, work, socially, making friends, making connections however small they may seem. But we bounce on, and often forget that we’ve touched lives, and they’ve touched us. We can rewrite the story pretty easily, and a hero becomes a goat or vice versa. We all paint the world in our own colors, and sometimes those colors bleed all over the past. A relationship gone bad can turn into a relationship you never remember as being anything but bad. No wonder we feel so Other so often.

Today, the anniversary of a horrible attack on our psyche and our people, it strikes me that we’re all lost and alone together. We are more and more ruled by fear and advertising, put in our place and stuck trying to buy our way out, into something we know we’re missing. I think what we’re missing is one another. I guess in that way we’re all victims. And I think it’s worth the effort to reach out, take a chance, trust someone carefully, and trust and forgive ourselves.