October 15, 2023
I’ve always been a bit proud of the fact that I don’t get lonely. I can go days or weeks without seeing another person. I love to watch my shows, scour Youtube for documentaries, read, piddle around my house and play on my phone. I thought I was just lucky to enjoy my own company so well.
It’s been 18 days since Mom passed and I am crushed under the weight of loneliness. It’s not like she was here with me, we lived 520 miles apart. But she was HERE. I talked to her all the time and the very fact of her existence on this earth meant I was not alone.
I guess I never understood what the absence of loneliness is… it is not the ability to be comfortable alone, it is the innate, deeply-rooted knowledge that you are not alone.
This feeling will not pass if I find more people to hang out with, the causal event is irrevocable. Someone said something like “the depth of grief is evidence of the depth of your love” and I might amend that to say..
The depth of my loneliness is evidence of the depth of Mom’s unconditional love.
My grief feels manageable, my loneliness is bruising.