Our college-aged daughter has been home for just a spell before she heads back out. With a sporadic and flexible work schedule, she took the opportunity to go skiing for the day. The other kids were in school, dad had work, I don’t ski, all her friends have moved away… it was just a day on her own. Turned out that while she had a pleasant enough time, she returned home a bit early. “It got a little lonely.”
As a young mom, I remember packing up the van, loading in the kids, and prepping with snacks and rain gear for all kinds of sporting events. But we’re down to our last two kids in school and there are only a handful of times they have meets here in town each season. When I go watch my son pole vault, all the families are kind of squished together in their chairs near the pit, so it feels like we’re all there together. And same thing when I’ve watched cross country at the river. But last season we were at a park half an hour from home with the race wide open, the course strewn all across the acreage. Families weren’t all huddled near the finish line because in this scenario it was easy to move about the park and catch your child from different angles. And also in this scenario it was easy to feel alone. Most moms and dads had either each other or several kids with them. Some parents had fellow mom friends from school or the team. I felt exposed in the wide-open fields, noticeably on my own. Which was fine. But unsettling. I wondered who I knew, who I would feel comfortable enough with, who wouldn’t mind me tagging along. I found one friend with her daughter, but she left to follow her son. I didn’t feel comfortable following her; surely she would’ve indicated if she had wanted that. I felt excused and isolated in the middle of a crowded park.
It was a late summer evening last year. A weekend night. A time when others would have each other. I’m used to my kids and husband flitting around on weeknights with their activities and meetings, but this felt different. I imagined families gathered, friends over, people I knew celebrating the lingering summer light. And almost always, that’s us. We love having friends with us, eating together on the back deck under our twinkly lights, a dreamy and familiar scene. And if not friends, at least I almost always have Todd to be with. On this night I was just puttering in the yard and even though I knew the night was arranged, a late work meeting, kids off with their friends, I anticipated their arrival, hoping it would be sooner than expected. As the light began to fade, I remember noticing how alone in the world I felt. We have a bit of land around our property, a couple of pastures, large gardens; I felt both cocooned within my fence and swallowed up in the expansiveness of it all: lonely and decidedly longing for company.
These experiences turn out to be so fleeting. We can take ourselves home off the ski hill. The race eventually ends and everyone goes back to their houses. At some point, the family members return and we’re reunited.
Except when we can’t or they don’t. When it’s more of an everyday reality.
The night in the garden turned my thoughts to my single friends. I contemplated what it might feel like to always be the one to turn on the outside lights as dusk approaches, to entertain myself day after day, to cook for one, to wonder what everyone else is doing, to want to be invited but to not feel fun enough to be the host, to hear the sounds of the road and neighboring yards but only quiet within my head. I wondered if they were used to it to the point it had become no big deal.
And yet I know there’s nothing wrong with being alone. Most of the world might be. But it’s only been very recently that I’ve started experiencing it firsthand. I always lived with my growing up family, then roommates, then a husband, and shortly thereafter we started bringing kids in. It’s only been in the last year or so that I’ve spent the majority of my days and weeks all on my own, many times 12 or 13 hours a day. Which really is fine. I lean introvert and can’t fathom being bored. I love puttering and having my days to myself. But every now and then I feel it more poignantly, not just the aloneness, but the loneliness. While the more I’m alone, the more normal it feels, and at the same time, the more I long for association. “I realize, for the first time, how very lonely I've been in the arena. How comforting the presence of another human being can be” (Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games).
These tiny experiences have stayed with me over the past several months, I believe, in an attempt to remind me to not take my people and joys for granted. They continue to inspire me to reach out beyond myself and the contrived plans I make for my days to notice those on their own. While I’m only vaguely aware of how many of my friends live, I find myself wanting to make more of an effort to both honor their independence and to join with them. I feel myself awakening to the idea that many around us, even those in the center of the arena, might feel as I have on occasion. I’ve come to a new understanding of what that might be like and how simply extending myself as a companion can soothe and aid a lonely heart.
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