loneliness

I realized this past winter, that I am chronically lonely. Even when I am with friends, I am lonely. Even when I am joyful, I am lonely. It's like having a mild chronic illness along the lines of well-controlled asthma or surgically-corrected strabismus. For some periods of time, it's latent, and then it makes itself known again.

I get tired of being the odd numbered wheel.

My friends are wonderful and welcoming, but the vast majority of them are coupled, and being the third, the fifth, or the seventh at the table gets old. Excellent, wide ranging, adult conversation does not change the fact that when we all stand up, they are going home in pairs, and I am going home alone.

Because I have recently moved, I've been meeting lots of new people, and I have become fascinated by third fingers on left hands. Even in places where I tend to meet people separately from their partners, as at church and at work, the majority of my peers are similarly coupled.

There is a particular kind of loneliness in being a widow surrounded by couples.

There is also a particular kind of loneliness in being the adult in a household with teenagers.

My teenagers are good kids, and they have learned to bear greater responsibility for themselves than many of their peers are asked to, but their inherent adolescent selfishness means that the emotional labor of noticing that the animals need care and that the sinks need scrubbing is my burden. No amount of reasoned conversation followed by pleading followed by screaming followed by profanity has changed this.

This is the loneliness that comes of not being heard.

I get tired of being a broken record.

I don't dislike my own company, and I don't feel that I am an incomplete person as a single person. In fact, there are times that I quite enjoy making decisions without having to consult another person. Nonetheless, loneliness is part of my life. And I imagine in this I am not alone.