the key by Andrea Joseph

To Hopes, Dreams, and Possibilities
Missed Connections from Champaign Urbana

Opening up the browser to personals on Craigslist is similar to the experience of opening up a newspaper to the personal ads. The words of desperate souls release a musty scent of loneliness that I can almost smell. They want a particular type of woman or man. Or they don’t want a particular type of woman or man. They are looking for company, one-night stands, for short-term relationships, or long-term relationships. Not just the posters, but the voyeurs as well. Vicariously or otherwise.

The anonymity affords us to come forward with our ideals. Summing up oneself or an ideal mate with a few acronyms and numbers. Perhaps a few words. Perhaps too many words. Words struggling to appear off-handed, easygoing, transparent, or desperate. Words trying to define what exactly is missing in our lives–in lists of words, acronyms, and numbers.

It’s not a sin to be lonely. Loneliness is a state of being that comes and goes with the changes in our environment. Human evolution and survival coincides with our intrinsic needs for community, for trusting relationships, procreation. Providing order and peace–also human ideals, and states of being.

Amidst these Craigslist ads are the conflicting emotions found deep within the cracks and shadows of our community. Shadows behind our strong-willed and non-lonely appearances. Blindly trying to find each other, or lead each other, in the dark.

We have a strong reliance on our empirical senses and our instincts, because in reality, that’s all we have. Numbers, acronyms, and words are merely descriptions we place on each other. In reality as well. One’s entire life cannot be summed up in numbers, acronyms, even words. People are not what they seem. Any story we read in the news reinforces this. Our own experiences of encountering different people reinforces this.

Discovering truths. Again and again. Because we are blinded in one way or another. We rely on the logic that our collective experiences will somehow form a bigger picture, or an objective truth.

We like to box other people and ourselves in, because that is how we most easily process information. Yet we break and climb out of our boxes all the time.

With this new revolution around the sun, I wish you all a good new year. Of new experiences and knowledge. Of love and forgiveness. Of opening up your mind and stepping outside the box to new possibilities and to new discoveries of others, and especially of yourself.

I hope you discover what you are searching for, in tangible or other forms. Finding new passions through relationships, new and old. A renewed sense of direction or purpose through new responsibilities. New interests in hobbies or preoccupations that add dimension and relief to the human experience.

Best regards and well wishes. Of not only surviving another year, but making your marks along the hearts and souls of others along the way. Any act of kindness, great or small, is a difference you are making in someone else’s world.

Her Two Cents from the Missed Connections Chief Bottle-Finder:

Champaign-Urbana is our missed connections featured location today. While this message is a little long, I thought it provided some thoughtful insight into the whole missed connections universe and its human inhabitants. Not unlike Andrea Joseph’s rich illustration – the details and narrative are always found somewhere. Happy New Year indeed!