Lonely Hearts Club
How is loneliness for you?
It’s been a tough week, out there… and in here. As usual, DJT won’t let you forget him for a day - it’s always something. Then to wake up a few days ago to Israel bombing Iran, and yesterday to the assassination of a state representative in Minnesota… I’m heart sick just with these.
Then, there’s my personal life. A friend died a month ago. Another one last week. Several projects are in limbo, started with gusto only to enter a swamp of uncertainty.
Several families I count on announced they are possibly - just a little bit, just for a little while - expatriating.
That’s a lot of moorings cut at once.
Probably this is why I’ve been feeling lonely. Too much all at once.
When my heart has too many feelings to process on the fly, I want someone to listen so I can place them on a table, one at a time, like a Tarot spread, to see the patterns. In the listening with kindness, this person (sometimes me) helps me heal through insight. “Ah! I see” seems to settle the murk of being shaken.
I live alone and like it - most of the time. When those waves of exhaustion or sadness come, though, I long for a sort of phantom limb of a bestie. Absent that, I scan to see which of my busy friends to ask for a cuppa empathy. It’s not always easy - on me or them.
I’ve had best friends. Some have died. Some have moved. I have moved. Some have distanced themselves. Right now there isn’t one best friend, but rather a collection of wonderful people from different parts of my life, none of whom live nearby. When my mind is full of the sunshine of creativity, I fail to notice how threadbare my blanket of local connections may have become. A panic comes scratching at the door of my mind, but I know that loneliness isn’t actually a shame to push away or a problem to be solved. It is a difficult feeling with information and limited tenure.
My best bestie
My very best friend of 15 years died some 7 years ago. We talked weekly, offering one another our absolute, you’d-never-tell-anyone-else-honesty. Nothing was off limits. Topics were just like shards of pottery from which we’d together make a mosaic. It didn’t matter if it was his broken pieces or mine - the mosaic would embody something we both needed. He saw me through cancer, through depressions, through romances and break ups, though moving to a new community, through writing a book, and more. He was my Carol King “You’ve got a friend” friend. When he was close to death, I visited him and asked him for something impossible to guarantee. “If there is an afterlife, and if your beloveds actually come to accompany you into the light, will you promise to come fetch me?”
Episodic besties
Maybe the episodic nature of having besties - including a therapist at times - is normal. When I envy people with steady partners or families I remind myself that loneliness is an occupational hazard of the writer’s life. I also remind myself that none of us knows how another’s life feels from the inside, or what sacrifices were made to build what they have.
This sense of loneliness will pass. As uncomfortable as it is, I want to let it be. I want to listen to my heart like I might a child when she’s scared, knowing she’ll be running open armed into life as soon as she feels safe.
This seems germane to coming of aging, since I may find myself alone towards the end of my life, with little time or energy for making new friends. I may need to steady myself, then, to pray, meditate, and allow any upwelling of emotion to arise and then subside. I may need to companion myself, despite an abundance of love in the past.
I may be just lucky (or wise) enough to have besties around who companion me as well.
How is this for you?
I’ve written this mostly for myself. Wrapping feelings in words is my joy, craft, service - and therapy. I also want to stay honest about the rigors of coming of aging and to nip in the bud any effort to curate an image. It’s risky to reveal vulnerabilities. You don’t know what will come back at you - poor advice, hearty buck-up, analysis, rejection or worse. I assure you that part of me is problem solving right now. What I’m inviting with this post, though, is companionship. What stories about any shade of loneliness do you have to tell? How have you companioned yourself?
Thank you for that confirmation that it's not confined to single women with cats. 😉
You are such a powerful role to me of REAL honesty Vicki - not just being a cheerleader to help others thrive, but also in sharing that sometimes, even with your irrepressible spirit, your meaningful creative pursuits and vision, and your ability to both friend and be friended, living alone without a 'bestie' gets DAMN HARD. We are a tribal species, we are meant to keep each other close (not that I want to romanticize that, living communally or with close family comes with its own challenges!)
Something that struck a chord with me, and from hearing the stories of many other unpartnered non-mothers over the years, is how the informal bonds that we might come to rely on - friends, neighbours - can and do change as their life circumstances change, and can leave us more isolated than we'd like, and had hoped for. This can feel like an abandonment emotionally, even if we are robustly pragmatic about it. It can happen at any age, but in old age, and in a time of shifting sands, it hits hard. Big hugs, Jody x