OPUS EDITORIAL / COLUMN
Why does love
make us feel lonely?
On love, validation and loneliness—the feelings happiness alone cannot explain. A story about a woman rediscovering the self she had forgotten.
Why does love sometimes feel lonely?
We tend to believe that falling in love
makes us happy.
Of course, that is not untrue. Yet for many women, love does not end with happiness alone. In an unguarded moment, it can bring an overwhelming loneliness with it.
01
Where does
that loneliness come from?
It is difficult to explain the reason in words.
Are we lonely because we have fallen for someone? Are we lonely because we cannot see them? It does not seem quite that simple.
Somewhere in the hearts of many women is a desire to feel validated.
- To be praised.
- To be treated with care.
- To be seen as someone special.
- To be needed.
That is neither selfish nor extravagant.
Perhaps it is an extension of the sense of security we all received so naturally as children.
02
From being protected
to becoming the protector.
To be protected by someone. To be told that you belong here.
As we grow older, that warmth gradually fades away.
Before she realises it, a woman is no longer the one being protected, but the one doing the protecting.
For her children. For her family. For her partner or husband. At work and in her relationships, too, she is often expected to be mindful of everyone around her.
There is beauty in that. But being beautiful does not make it any less exhausting.
The more someone continues to support others,
ON CARE, LOVE AND LONELINESS
the fewer opportunities she has to be supported herself.
03
Are men to blame?
It may be easy to reach that conclusion. But reality is more complicated.
Many men are unaware of the subtle shifts in emotion that women experience.
There is no ill intent. They simply do not notice.
And so women hope, “I want him to understand without being told,” while men think, “I cannot understand unless you tell me.”
That disconnect is not the responsibility of one person alone.
Even when the emptiness within seems to have found an explanation, it quietly returns.
It dissolves into the busyness of everyday life, until eventually she tells herself, “This is simply how it is.”
Many women repeat this cycle.
04
You do not have to carry
that emptiness for the rest of your life.
Must that emptiness be something a woman carries for her entire life simply because she is a woman?
I want to believe that it need not be.
As it was in our youth.
When the thought of seeing someone made your heart race, and you spent just a little longer getting ready in front of the mirror.
There is no need to lose from your life the joy you once felt simply at being able to see someone.
We cannot turn back time. But the moment when the heart begins to stir again can come at any age.
05
Rediscovering
the self you had forgotten.
- To be needed.
- To be looked at.
- To be treated as a woman.
- To feel safe enough to let go.
This is not an escape into the past.
It is time to rediscover the self you had forgotten.
06
Not an escape from the everyday,
but time to reclaim what has been lost.
OPUS does not seek to offer an escape from everyday life itself.
It offers time to rediscover the excitement and reassurance that have gradually faded from daily life.
Not someone’s mother. Not someone’s wife. Not someone’s subordinate.
To smile as a woman, to be desired as a woman, and to set your heart free as a woman.
That time is never intended as an escape from reality.
It is time that allows you to begin walking forward again tomorrow, true to yourself.
