Vicky
I think it is more like
emptiness. So right there and then I have covered half the day, so even
if I do not have any plans to go out for the rest of the day, the spiritual
experience and the contact with people gives me a lift. That even if that kind
of empty feeling comes along and I feel lonely, later in the day; I have built
the foundation in the morning for my day. (Line 103-108 of 1st
interview).
The story of Vicky. Vicky selects a garden of flowers as a metaphor. She feels
that flowers symbolize happiness and are the colors of life. However, she
admits a garden of flowers also symbolizes the existence of resentment in her.
The reason is that she longs to have a cheerful life. Vicky with her gentle
voice, allows the interview to flow very well. Vicky elaborates that a garden
of flowers always brightens her mood and makes her cheerful and happy. She was comfortable exploring each question and
confidently answered questions posed to her.
Vicky is a 75-year-old retired clerk who is currently living
alone in her apartment. Due to her divorce, she has been living independently
for 17 years. She mentions that she “was married but I never had children.” She
explains, “That was a disappointment and that makes me feel sad, that I do not
have that in my life.”
Vicky
describes her experience of loneliness from the lived experience category of
lived time and lived other. She realizes that at this stage of her life and after her retirement, she
longs to make herself occupied with work and to be with others. She describes
her situation of being non-occupied as a reason for her loneliness. She
explains further, “I guess it is a day when I do not have any plans. It makes
me lonely.” From this testimony, Vicky
has achieved a rationalization about her time of her life when she broke a
certain routine (her work experience), which enhanced her loneliness from that
point onward.
Vicky’s
excerpt shows her description of loneliness as being more like emptiness. She
describes it in relation to contact with others, and her spiritual belief
becomes the foundation for her ability to cope with this loneliness. The
existential category of lived other identifies her loneliness situation, due to
the fact that she expresses the importance of personal contact in order to feel
complete.
According
to Vicky, being alone and having nothing to do have gradually made her
conscious of the existence of loneliness in her life. The fact remains that
being alone, however, does not necessarily lead to loneliness, but in Vicky’s
case she has clarified the fact that alone and lonely are synonymous; leading
to the same result; emptiness. She describes her feelings of being alone as
those of emptiness because of not having others presently in her life. She
describes, “I think what I mean by empty is, I am not going to see anyone, and
no one is coming to see me.”
