We all get lonely sometimes.
Sometimes all we need is company - human connection - even if just to sit beside and say nothing to each other. Just to be near someone else.
This emotion is amplified in places like hospitals, doctor's office waiting rooms, even in the office itself when you are completely alone just waiting.
There is this one story that I heard about a doctor who ended up developing Cancer. All that I remember from the story is that he finally understood the desperation in the eyes of some of his patients. He explained how he was sitting in the waiting room waiting to see his oncologist - with about 30 other people. And each person was clutching onto a piece of paper with his/her waiting number on it. Gripping desperately to a piece of paper just to get his/her five minutes with the doctor. He understood how each person has been suffering for months just waiting for this one particular appointment where he/she sits for two hours or more in the waiting room just to get five minutes with a doctor - hoping to get any kind of help, understanding, or explanation.
This story really sticks with me.
I can't tell you how many times that I have felt this. This desperation. Appointments that I have been waiting for for months, to sit there alone for hours, then to only have five minutes to explain all of my new symptoms, what I am hoping for, and hopefully get a clear answer.
One of the only positive things to come out of this is that I know that every single person in that waiting room is in 'the same boat' as I am. I am not completely alone in feeling this.
When I sometimes take a cab to the emergency room, or sit for hours on end in a doctor's office or at the lab to get bloodwork done, my eyes always turn straight to the people who have somebody there beside them. It's not so much that I want company for every appointment - in fact that would probably drive me insane - it's more that sometimes I really need the distraction. Somebody who will tell me jokes and make me forget why I need to be there.
To show support.
Sometimes I just need some sort of human connection to get me out of my own head - and I think that is a very common emotion.
I need that at night sometimes too.
I try and write down all of the fears and anxieties that I feel (in general), but sometimes I just need someone there, someone to stay with me, even in the quiet.
I am lucky to have that a lot of the time now.
So here is the cover of Sam Smith's "Stay With Me".
Enjoy.