I am lonely. I have been lonely. When that thought crystallised in my mind, I immediately started trying to draw lines and make connections. My mind doesn’t accept emotions on their own- I accept patterns and facts and reasons. I started to think about 2019 where I started the year newly married and left alone as most married people are- and the fractured relationships from my wedding planning that I planned to heal. I thought about the absolute disbelief of losing my mum on a morning where she woke up and made her own breakfast. And then the relationships that fractured from that. The wedding fractures that turned into permanent breaks.
The isolation of not working. The mental stress of not earning money, then earning a little and then not earning again. The loneliness of creating something that you put your soul into and the tepid response. The loneliness of not having the words to express, to explain how grief melds itself with you so much that you don’t know where the grief starts and your other emotions end.
The loneliness of trying to find and give joy. Of clinging to the relationships you have left. Of wondering what the hell is wrong with me? Why am I not…likeable…loveable?
The loneliness of reading and reading and trying to escape to anywhere but here?
Of hoping your vulnerability can save a relationship that you didn’t realise was already dead?
The loneliness of the expectation that marriage can save you- from loneliness, from longing, from wanting - to be liked, to have a community, from self-doubt.