Sometimes, things fall apart. We're left in the aftermath where it's cold, messy, and everything's broken.

We feel broken.

That person, whoever that person was or is, isn't there anymore. Maybe that person left or abandoned you in that chaos where you feel permanently trapped. Or maybe you're on your own for the first time in a new place without anyone to depend upon. Maybe you're in a room full of people and you feel you don't belong. We say we're lonely, but loneliness doesn't define us.

How can someone BE lonely? Loneliness isn't part of who we are, what we stand for, or what we represent. When you describe who you are as a person, lonely shouldn't be an adjective. Loneliness is a state. It comes and goes, just as happiness, sadness, anger and contentment shift with life's events.

We can only FEEL lonely. We cannot BE lonely. A current feeling of loneliness will fade when times change to reward the bad with good. We will feel fulfilled and happy again when the timing is right and people come or return into our lives. Then those feelings of sadness, loneliness, or whatever else, will continue fading until forgotten. Loneliness doesn't define us because loneliness is not nearly ever-present.

How can we be something that doesn't define us? We can't. There's so many worse things we can be that actually do characterize us based on our personality and exhibited traits.

We could be cruel.

We could decide not to connect– detached.

We could be bad.

We could choose not to feel– emotionless.

We could be mean.

I think a lot of people decide to push off their emotions because it hurts. There's so much strength in facing yourself and the way you feel heads on. It's embracing life with its ups and downs. It's deciding that it is what is is. Sometimes we don't have consistency and we do feel unwanted things. Those feelings are nothing but bad weather en route to a wonderful, wonderful destination. That destination will be gorgeous because the scenery getting there is beautiful and the vehicle itself is functional and powerful.

We have ourselves. There's better things to be than cruel, detached, bad, emotionless, and mean. We can be smart, caring, beautiful, sporadic, ambitious, interesting, multi-leveled, phenomenal individuals. It's our choice to encompass the good and project that into the world. We can be our best selves instead. Our many complicated, confusing, wonderful selves. We may feel lonely, but we won't feel lonely for long. If we are the company we wish to keep, others will tag along for the journey.