When the person you're spending time with, is constantly texting, calling and "snapchatting" someone else, it leaves you feeling, like it's not truly you they want to spend time with. That there's always someone else who is more important. More important than you, and what you have to give. And while you are happy, that the person across from you found someone they want to share every second of the day with, you feel yourself sinking into a loneliness you have no idea how to conquer, because you never learned to swim in it.
When you walk through life, knowing you're not a priority to anyone, it can get pretty lonely. You are often overlooked - always welcome but never invited, because they forgot; you are loved and your friends enjoy your company, but when the lights turn off at night, and everybody finds a hand to hold, you end up walking home alone.
And so you cherish the friendships that you get, the moments you share with someone, because to you, they mean the world.
The more painful it is then, when that person across from you, still can't make you a priority - and if it's just for a moment. Instead of being there with you, they text and text and disappear for phone calls. And the only messages that sends to you in that moment, is very clear:
"The relationship I can now have with someone who is somewhere else in the world right now, is more important to me, than the memories we could make together right now, being in the same spot on this planet!"
And that stings. It stings in the soul, doesn't it? It isn't one of those sharp pains, that make you cry alone in bed at 2am, it is that numb feeling you get in your stomach, when you realize that the phone is still right next to them, right there where they can see it, so they can always dive back into the separate reality that life with a phone allows you to live.
And so this little numb feeling, it eats away at you, in that moment it takes for them to send a text back, when you stare down at your hands while stumbling through the sentence you were just saying because a "no, continue talking, I am listening" is prompting you to continue and you don't want to see their fingers moving, forming words for another conversation you are not part of --- and you start to wonder what it must feel like, to be a priority like that in someone else's life...
--- but is that all it is? Jealousy? ---
...and you watch this moment slip through your fingers and you try to hold on to it and its beauty as tightly as possible, hold on for both of you, because the person across from you might be physically there, but yet light years away, in someone else's embrace.
And maybe that is the worst part of it all: not being alone, but feeling so utterly lonely.
How is it possible, that, in a world in which technology get's better and more efficient every day, and there is a million ways to communicate, we get lonelier and lonelier by the minute - that we get so caught up in all those chats and video calls and picture sharing apps, that we forget to communicate with the human in flesh and blood, right there next to us!?
And hand on heart: aren't we all guilty of it? Haven't we all had our phone in hand, while spending an evening with others? Haven't we all been in that situation where we kept a million conversations running, and forgot to answer the question the real person across from you asked? And did we have the intention of hurting them - let alone did we know how our action might have made them feel? Were we aware of the loneliness we might kindle in our friend? I know we didn't! Because we had a good reason for checking our phone! And there is always reasons! A friend in need, a Facebook group chat, a job offer, Instagram comments under your last pic - but honestly, can't that wait a moment, for the sake of not missing out on the moment right in front of you?
The truth is, you can't be everyone's priority, but you can choose who you want to spend your time with. And it shouldn't be people that remind you of the loneliness you feel, every time you fall asleep alone at night.
For when you are around those souls, who truly want to share the moment and the experience it holds within with you, you will never feel alone.
We have to learn again, how to treasure the friendships, that are important to us. We are not limited to one person that we have to spend every second of the day with, (or share, for that matter) - we can love more than one person as a friend, and we can be respectful enough to let the moments we have with them, be truly a moment with them, without making them feel like they mean less to us because you couldn't refrain from talking to someone else.
Be in the moment. Be here. Be in your life right now.
So look for the people who put their phones away when they're with you. Who leave them in their bags or even better - turned off and --- this works both ways!! --- who make you want to turn off yours too! Be with people who want to spend time with you right there and now, sitting on the rooftop, drinking cheap wine and talking about life till the sun comes up. Chose people who chose YOU and don't show you, that while your company is nice, there is someone else they'd rather spend this moment with!
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