my loneliness

I finally understood something right before I left for San Diego. My mom suddenly said during dinner on the last day that my dad was going to be lonely without me around because there is no one for him to have philosophical and intellectual discussions with. My dad used to say once in a while how he used to be just like me. I could never see it. I couldn't see myself becoming him. I always blamed him; thought that his isolation from the rest of the family was so childish. I understand it now though, and I can see how I am headed down that path. My dad was never isolated from us in any physical way (though the barriers did exist in the form of closed doors). Somewhere along the way (from what I can tell, and what I heard from my mom, it was sometime after I was born), we simply stopped existing to him in his world. Our thoughts were so different from his that he couldn't connect with what we would talk about, what we cared about, all our priorities were so different from his own. I understand now. He lived a life of dinner table conversation that he could never be a part of. The things that interested him would bore the rest of us and so he never brought it up, and eventually simply stopped eating with us. And I could say that he shouldn't have simply given up on us the way he did, but I think I'm beginning to understand that as well. It's so overwhelming, the sense of loneliness even when you are surrounded by people, that sometimes, you just need to get away.

I think perhaps its even more poignant to me now. I think I'm right on the precipice as well; about to fall into my own trappings of an alternate "world". This may sound like I'm switching topics entirely, but to me, it's still the same. I've always felt that classical music had a unique quality that little music has now which is simply that it seems to take on a life of its own at times. No words perhaps? The communication is purely through the emotions that had to be portrayed in melodies alone? Maybe something entirely different. Different to different people. Projections of themselves, that's a part of empathy after all isn't it?

I've stopped questioning what I really want. In the end, I don't think I know what I really want. I think what would make me the most happy is probably something I haven't yet considered. I have new goals now though, but they are conflicting to me, because to focus on what makes me happy will inevitably isolate me from certain people who also think of their own happiness. Funny how that works out. Being happy and lonely: that's a total contradiction to me.