Alone.

I'm at home now. 

Or I'm at the house now. 

Well, I guess this house is becoming my home. I mean, I love it. I love the people in it. Its the constant familiar in my day to day existence. So, yes...I'm at home. 

I'm alone at home. 

I suppose Matt is asleep in the next room, and Pervis is sleeping downstairs. The other boys are out somewhere.

But I'm not keeping company with anyone else, and I find myself sitting at my desk staring blankly at the screen. Its cold in here and my empty Taco Bell bag states it plainly that I ate dinner without sharing how my day went with someone across from me. So, yes...I'm alone. 

I'm scared of the aloneness.

I mean, I kinda live in "the ghetto" and someone could break in or whatever, but that never scares me. The other night I took a nap on the couch with the door wide open. I bike home in the middle of the night. Its not my surroundings that scare me. 

But when I'm sitting here in my room with no one else to hear me--no one else to enter into my story--I feel stuck. There's nowhere to go. There's no one to call. I could watch a movie, but which one? I just sit here alone with... with me. Its when I'm alone with me that I have to think about who I am and what I am daily bringing to the table. What have I done today? Did I really say that? Did I really do that? Did I really let that enter my mind? Oh God?! who am I? Does anyone know that I am here? Does anyone remember me right now at this moment?

So yes... I'm scared of the aloneness. 

I try very hard to never use this site as an opportunity for whining. No one wants to read that. But I believe this deep fear of loneliness that turns my home into a fearful trap, is the root of my sin. I won't say it is the root of your sin, but maybe?

At night, after working late, as I walk across Market Square to the parking garage with my hood pulled over my head and my breath leading the way, I can feel my feet tugged in a hundred directions. My hand compulsively reaches for my phone, but no one is out and about for me to call. Its too late. There are bands playing in the different venues, but I know none of them. Still, maybe I should pop in and check them out. 

Really? Why the delay to go home? 

We hate facing ourselves. I hate facing myself. That is the delay.

Enter sin. 

It comes up behind me as I walk to my car, and it wraps its tender arms around me. As I stand looking at my deserted house, It bursts into the living room like a playful sibling. It smiles at me, and it is that smile which says it all.

"Hello, brother. I've missed you." 

Sin and I embrace, immediately sharing old stories that make us laugh until we cry. 

"Oh, I missed you, brother!" I say, "You couldn't have come at a better time." 

We sit together like two old pals, and now I have someone to eat dinner with. To keep company with. Now, I'm not alone. 

Until I awake, and I realize that my house is colder and the taco bell bag has been sitting in my room for far too long. I look around and see the remnants of my week, and I realize that I have still been alone. Sin was never keeping me company. It was merely covering my eyes with the facade that I was not alone.

We must learn to be alone--to live in this lonely moment. We must learn to be silent and enjoy it but not as "martyrs" who cry out, "No one loves me! Where are my friends?" We must learn--I must learn--to be alone, simply. That is when sin no longer approaches me as an old friend, but as the snake it is. Then, I can think clearly enough to crush it. 

To suffer through the loneliness and make it to the other side--this is what it means to remain sane.