I’ve deliberated on two titles for this piece. I was torn between the ‘failing’ one which you can see I’ve used and ‘the loneliness of august’. As I was pondering I realised that the two were intrinsically linked. Loneliness leads to the negative thoughts of failure that swirl, grows and gathers momentum in my head.
As I write I feel incredibly lonely. Not in my offline life, but in my online and creative life. I’ve written about creative loneliness before, a couple of years ago. Back then I didn’t have anyone creative online I could confide in. I had no group of understanding writers that I could turn to. But the loneliness I felt back then gave me the impetus to create a community. The Confident Creative Club started to grow as a concept in my mind.
Fast forward two years and I’m lucky to now have lots of friends and colleagues. The Confident Creative Club has been incredible and I’ve formed many friendships there. I’ve also made friends and bonds with people outside the club.
But there is something about this feeling of loneliness and subsequent feeling of failure that is stopping me from opening up to my online creative friends about it.
Firstly, I don’t want to bring anyone down with me. But secondly, and selfishly, I don’t want to have to fake a smile. In fact, I don’t want to have to talk about it. Like, physically talk, to examine my feelings verbally. The thought of it is exhausting. I’m uncomfortable when the attention is purely on me.
A number of years ago I went to therapy. Eventually, I stopped going because, quite frankly, I got bored of talking about myself. And that’s how I feel now. I have a number of people I could Zoom who would just get it. But I just don’t want to talk about my loneliness - which, ridiculously, makes me feel even more lonely.
I think the truth is I’m embarrassed.