Even when I am enjoying time with my friends, I tend to feel a sense of melancholy, an aching acknowledgement that those precious friendships may soon be gone from my life and that a time will come when I only have the memories to hold onto.

People move on. Forever friends are not always forever. Some friendships only last for a season, some for a lifetime, and some end in the silence that slowly accumulates over years.

Someone once told me that every opportunity is limited. Our interactions with the people around us are limited. The time that we get to invest in our friendships is limited. We only have so much time to make an impact in the lives of others and we never know when that time will be up.

Every time I get behind the wheel of a car, my heart starts pounding. I feel the breaths that tighten in my chest, my hands desperately gripping the steering wheel. I constantly tell myself that I can do this, that I am in control.

Maybe I struggle with this crippling fear of driving because so many people in my family have been in multiple car accidents. From minor fender benders to more serious incidents that left their vehicles totaled.

Or maybe I'm afraid because my dad used to fall asleep at the wheel. I remember countless car trips that had me fearing for my life because my dad refused to pull over and let my mother drive. Even when we started veering off the road. Even when we cried and begged him to. He would roll the window down to help him stay awake (it never did) and I would hear the cars speeding past on the highway, feel the wind pushing against our van, see the lights rushing past us... And I would wonder, is this the end?

Or perhaps my fear of driving stems from the times that my parents would argue in our vehicle. My dad would get angry and then he would drive recklessly. The trees would pass by in a blur, my mother screaming for him to slow down, and I would feel so helpless. I worried that we would never reach our destination and that we would end up in a twisted piece of metal wrapped around a tree or that we would die in a fiery car crash.

Every time I get behind the wheel of a car, I hope that it will get easier, that I can put my past behind me and not be held captive by my nightmares and the anxiety that threatens to unleash the panic that I barely keep at bay.

I hate that driving is such an ordeal and that the first thing I say when I park my car is, "I made it."

Moving in silence means forgetting what your voice sounds like because you have not spoken aloud in days. It is being attuned to the sound of your own breathing, but flinching when you hear other sounds. It is feeling a crushing weight that slowly begins to press in on you from all sides…Suffocating. It is quietly drowning in your thoughts and watching the world move around you, as you coast through it like a drifting shadow. It is going through your entire day without speaking to another living soul, yet longing to hear your name spoken on the lips of strangers. Moving in silence means feeling invisible.

The other day I found a spider in my car, dangling in front of my face.

Now, driving on the road, something brushes against my leg. I imagine that great hairy legged fella crawling across my lap.

I dare to look.

Only to see my button… Hanging by a thread.

Tell me a story of fallen heroes,

Pleading and begging for mercy.

Tempting fate and pierced by arrows,

In the eyes of strangers unworthy.

Tell me a story of those soon to ascend,

The shining stairs of Valhalla.

Of many lives they did willingly spend,

For all the stars to recall.

Tell me a story without a fight,

With lover’s vows kept in their hearts.

Of desire, like foreplay into the night,

A love never lost nor torn apart.

Tell me a story til it burns forever,

In the hearts and minds of men.

Unfading eternally in memory,

A story never to end.

Greetings from sunny Florida. In my opinion, perhaps a little too sunny. “Go on vacation,” you said. “You don’t want to miss experiencing Disney World before they shut it down this summer!” Did you mean, experience what’s left of it? Because it’s kinda hard to enjoy the so called most magical place on earth, when the roads are melting and heat is pretty much radiating off of the rides. Who would ever have thought that in the year, 2073, I would be waiting in line, sweltering, more burned than tan, and wearing that very strong sunblock you (oh so helpfully suggested) to find myself on a roller coaster hanging over the ocean! Did I mention that the ocean levels are rising again? Maybe those Climate Change people were actually onto something when they started giving us those early warnings in 2023. I mean a large chunk of Florida is now completely under water and another evacuation just took place yesterday. Now that I mention it, I actually think I can hear the sirens now, but hopefully that’s just in my imagination. Anyways, I’m starting to run out of room on this postcard, but I simply can’t thank you enough for convincing me to go on this vacation and just wanted to say:

Wish you were here.

At its core, loneliness is an aching and longing in one’s soul for meaningful connection.

A person might enjoy the solitude of a quiet mind, but when the silence becomes deafening, that is when they are no longer simply alone, but rather lonely.

Loneliness can also be felt in a crowd because being surrounded by people is not enough to fill the need for true companionship.