SO GOOD QUOTES

In certain circumstances, being outside, not fitting in, can be a source of satisfaction, even pleasure.  There are kinds of solitude that can provide a respite from loneliness, a holiday if not a cure.  Sometimes as I walked, roaming under the stanchions of the Williamsburg Bridge or following the East River all the way to the silvery hulk of the U.N., I could forget my sorry self, becoming instead as porous and borderless as the mist, pleasurably adrift on the currents of the city.  I didn’t get this feeling when I was in my apartment; only when I was outside, either entirely alone or submerged in a crowd.

In these situations I felt liberated from the persistent weight of loneliness, the sensation of wrongness, the agitation around stigma and judgement and visibility.  But it didn’t take much to shatter the illusion of self-forgetfulness, to bring me back not only to myself but to the familiar, excruciating sense of lack.  Sometimes the trigger was visual – a couple holding hands, something as trivial and innocuous as that.

The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone