I know what it is to feel lonely.

Do you remember that kids card game Go Fish? I seriously always hear my own child voice in my head asking, “Do you have any 5’s?” No? Go fish!

I actually spent years in dispatch wanting to have a fishbowl where people could go write encouragement notes for each other and drop them in so that when someone needed a little extra love, or if they did something over-the-top amazing and nobody was there to celebrate with them, they could “go fish.”

Getting encouragement can be just like getting to eat when you’re hungry. Or it can feel like getting your figurative high “fives.”

But the fishbowl would have required a tiny bit of group effort, people not thinking it’s stupid, people periodically refreshing the messages, and a place for the bowl to live where it’ll actually get used and not just another thing to clean.

So, you think, “Nobody is going to want to do that.” And you talk yourself out it. And not only did you not get the little encouragement you needed, but you never did the fishbowl, and you sat in a room imagining what it would be like if people played Go Fish with you, and it wasn’t just seen as another “distraction in the workplace”, but as a real team-building tool. And nobody ever knew that what you felt inside was actually love that you wanted to share.

Well, “You” is me. The fishbowl wasn’t there. I didn’t do it. We didn’t do it. It didn’t happen. And that’s what it is (in part) to be lonely.

Well I’m not going to spend another day without a fishbowl!
And I’m not going to let you either.

Go Fish.