Message In a Bottle

Let me ask you a question. Have you ever written a message in a bottle and thrown it into the ocean or a river or lake? You send out that message, and wonder if anyone will ever find it, and if you will ever hear from them if they do.

Once, when I was younger, I put a message in a bottle. It was a line from a movie I had seen where the central plot point was a lonely young woman who would go to the beach every day, and throw a bottled message into the ocean. Every day for two years (if I remember the movie correctly.

Each message was the same. Her name, her address, and the following;

"There is in certain living souls
A quality of loneliness unspeakable,
So great it must be shared
As company is shared by lesser beings.
Such a loneliness is mine; so know by this
That in immensity
There is one lonelier than you."

I've come to realize that's what my blog posts are sometimes. Each one is a message in a bottle, and each time someone posts a comment, it's like getting a response to that message that you never really thought would come, but one that you kept hoping for anyway.

Yes. I'm feeling lonely. I feel lonely a lot, and treasure each comment on my blog, each private e-mail I receive, each phone call, kiss or embrace. They all come so seldom, occur so infrequently, that I try to prolong the experience as long as I can in order to store up the memories so they will last me a long time. Because who knows when the loneliness will be broken again, if ever.