My mind says I’m lonely. My heart disagrees, or at least it disagrees with the cause. Loneliness as a concept is hard to hold on to. Its letters are vapor. As I try to grasp them they slip through my fingers. I envelop them instead in a sheet as I pull them from my head into my heart.

“But look,” Heart objects. “There are all these strong connections that reach out to those who are far away. If I hurt, I hurt for lack of closeness to those I already love. It is not for want of new relationships that I suffer, but because I am missing the friends I already have scattered all over the world.”

“But there is no easy solution to that loneliness,” replies Mind. “Those relationships are of course important, and we can work to keep them, but none of them hold the possibility of being here now. Don’t you long for connection that is more consistently close?” There is a pause, and then she quietly adds: “Or are you scared?”

My eyes well with tears as the Heart pulses with emotion. “Of course I’m scared! I’m scared of not finding it. And I’m equally scared of finding it and losing it, or worse, messing up the order in my life because the attachment is too strong or too messy. Are we even meant to have more than a few of these attachments? What if we have met our limit already? If the connections I have are all I will ever have, shouldn’t we cling to them?”

“It is not healthy to cling,” Mind gently reminds. “We have learned that much at least. It may awaken emotion, but it is painful emotion and it is selfish. It does not show value to the personhood of those to whom we cling. No, we must not cling. And have we reached our limit? The only way to know is to remain open to finding new connections. If there is but one soul here that beats on the same wavelength as you, I intend to do my best to find it for you.”

“Ah,” Heart responds. “But there may not be even one.” (The words are not said with malice, but with gentleness and caution.) “If I am to join you in this venture, you must hold this intention as loosely as you ask me to hold my connections. Let us find peace in the journey, remaining open, yet not desperate.”