Over the last week, as our new first year students appear on campus to begin their journeys through college life, I was reminded of my own experience arriving at the gates of St. Pat’s college some time ago. And while I can recall that as an exciting and liberating time for sure, full of newness and the unknown, the feeling that stands out the most in my memory is a feeling of aloneness. I can remember so clearly how strange it felt to suddenly be alone. To not be surrounded by my familiar group of friends from secondary school. To not travel down every corridor in a small pack. To not enter the classroom with at least one person by my side. To not know who I was going to sit beside I class. To not have somebody to eat my lunch with. But mostly I think, to not have anybody to ‘cover’ me with. When the ‘others’ were stripped away, a sudden feeling of visibility came over me. A crippling sense of self-consciousness.

It was a shocking transition. A transition from what was comfortable and familiar, to complete aloneness. I didn’t actually know how to ‘do it’. To walk through the gates of the college – alone. How do I walk through the front door – alone? How do I find the correct room – alone? How do I walk down the corridor – alone? In silence, with nobody to talk to, or to distract me from it all.  An utterly exposing feeling. A feeling of complete vulnerability.

And so, the first girl that I spoke with at the induction session became my lifeline. I found the float, and I hung on. I phoned her every morning for those few weeks as I entered the campus grounds, and I walked inside the doors of the college with her. Not alone anymore. I sought her company out at break times. Sitting in the small canteen alone was not an option. We laughed about it for years after – she couldn’t shake me. I did not want to be alone.

I looked around me this week and I recognised that aloneness. Even in the midst of well-thought out and considered orientation week events. Even with the advancements of mobile phones as means to appear ‘occupied’. There is no compensating for the safety of your pack when you arrive in a new and unfamiliar place, despite everyone’s (and technology’s), best efforts.

I wondered about my own self learning that took place during that brief and uncomfortable initial period of aloneness. And I wondered about the learning that might be happening for so many young people this week, as they experience the feeling of aloneness – perhaps for the first time, or perhaps not.

Either way, I was reminded of David Whyte’s verse – in particular the last line – ‘Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into the conversation’…

Because once that period has passed (and this too shall pass), everything is indeed, waiting for you.

Everything is Waiting for You

David Whyte

Your great mistake is to act the drama
 as if you were alone. As if life
 were a progressive and cunning crime
 with no witness to the tiny hidden
 transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny
 the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,
 even you, at times, have felt the grand array;
 the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding
 out your solo voice. You must note
 the way the soap dish enables you,
 or the window latch grants you freedom.
 Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.
 The stairs are your mentor of things
 to come, the doors have always been there
 to frighten you and invite you,
 and the tiny speaker in the phone
 is your dream-ladder to divinity.

Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into the
 conversation. The kettle is singing
 even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots
 have left their arrogant aloofness and
 seen the good in you at last. All the birds
 and creatures of the world are unutterably
 themselves. Everything is waiting for you.