Archives for posts with tag: loneliness
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Reflections

October 22, 2024 //
0

I’ve always liked my appearance seen as a reflection in a window. I don’t know why this is, somehow it just seems to be “the best view” of myself, a little diluted, a little less specific somehow, softened a bit… less “real”. I almost always find myself quite beautiful as a reflection in a window. I don’t see myself quite that way in a mirror, or a photograph. Peculiar. Today is no different. I see my reflection and marvel at that woman, there, seen as if through the trees beyond the window, somehow younger than my years, and no hint of the tears in my eyes, or on my face.

…Crying in my office, again? What is this, the 00s??

Things seem harder than necessary lately. By “lately”, I mean most of the last year, honestly. It comes and goes. It’s been the worst since late February, since my Dear Friend died. Yeah, okay, so – grieving is hard. We don’t control how that goes, it just goes. I’m learning more about actual loneliness than I ever imagined I could. I wasn’t particularly prone to feelings of loneliness, before. I’m so very very prone to them now. With my Traveling Partner having the challenges he is, and the one woman I’d have felt free to discuss it with, without reservations, simply… gone… I feel so incredibly alone, now. I chastise myself for a moment; I could have done a better job of maintaining other cherished friendships and preserving more closeness with more dear friends than I have. I enjoy my solitude, and I’ve taken too much for granted. I still enjoy my solitude…but when I need someone, I’m often going to find myself going it alone nonetheless. Often. I’m not bitching – it’s not a bad life, and things could be so much worse. I’m just feeling my years, and feeling lonely as I face inevitable mortality, seeing some vague younger version of me reflected in a window, and wondering what the point of any of this actually is… yeesh. Grim. I ache with it. And also just with pain, physical pain. Fucking hell that just blows. Fuck pain.

…Oh, right… I maxed out all my pain management medication yesterday and here I am today, managing on less, and not hurting quite so much, but… now my mind is altered, and I’m feeling very blue, partly because I did so much yesterday to attempt to manage yesterday’s pain, and I’m paying the price emotionally, now. So… am I actually feeling “lonely”, or is this just “the down” from opiate pain management? Fuck. This shit is complicated. I simultaneously want very much to simply be entirely alone with this crap, and also very much miss someone to talk to about it – and about life, and how difficult some of this very human crap very much is. Too real. Fuck pain. Fuck drama. Fuck this particular moment, right here.

I put my head down on my desk and cry for awhile. This too will pass. Feelings are feelings, only that. Emotional weather. Small frustrations pile on top of other small frustrations and assorted inconveniences; it feels like a big pile. Heavy. Tears flow after other tears. Moments follow other moments. The clock is ticking. Eventually tears dry. Eventually, I can begin again.

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Categories Allegories, anhedonia, Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, breathe, Despair, forgiveness, Frustration, grief, health, loneliness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships

This Seriously Shitty Day in Progress

June 13, 2024 //
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I’ll keep doing my best…but…

…You don’t have to read this. In fact, I strongly suggest you skip it. I’m going to vent a bit, and share too much, and be too angry, and maybe you just don’t need that right now? Fucking drama, right? I know I don’t need this shit… I also don’t need to save it up to blow up over some even smaller bullshit later on. So, I just need to say words. You don’t have to read them, though…

Sure, it could be better, but it could also be a whole lot worse.

I didn’t get enough sleep last night. I woke with my headache “turned up to 11” this morning. My back aches with my arthritis. I’ve been dealing with a ton of “extras” – extra needs, extra tasks, extra negative emotions from people, extra calls on my calendar, extra email threads – and too little actual bandwidth to deal with it all comfortably, or easily, or with any particular measure of grace. Too much to do and I’m stretched to thin to be good at any of it. I’m just doing my best – and it’s clearly not enough to get the job done like a pro.

I catch tears welling up over and over again. Twice they dripped down my cheeks as I sat at my desk trying to focus on the task at hand. So… on top of all the other bullshit, I’m clearly also dealing with my own – while I sit in an open shared “public” professional (cowork) space. It’s awkward. Uncomfortable. Inconvenient. Inefficient. Distracting. (I’m still doing my best.)

…I even saw today coming, because it was pretty fucking predictable, and in no way actually “personal”…

On top of all that? The lights here are too bright. The office is too cold. My tinnitus is crazy loud. I’m noise-sensitive af. I broke a nail below the quick, and the broken bit snagged on the fabric of this office chair and tore right the fuck off – which hurts like hell, but nothing like this g’damned persistent now-going-on-11-years headache that follows me every-fucking-where, and for which no one (thus far) seems to have any useful insight on it, diagnosis of it, or treatment for it. It’s just there. Reliably. For 11 fucking years now.

My smile feels brittle when I have to interact with someone. It’s not real and doesn’t reach my eyes. I’m aware of it, and I feel self-conscious on top of being in pain. I want to do more, and do it better, and “be there” for everyone who needs me to be – especially my Traveling Partner, who’s dealing with his own misery today (and it’s probably worse than mine,) and who definitely needs my help, my love, and my care.

Why bother to drop this on you? Mostly because you’re here. Writing is a way I cope with complex emotion and shit that is overwhelming me. (Are you still reading this?? I did try to warn you…)

I breathe, exhale… I keep trying. I keep going. I just keep stepping through the various motions of various practices and waiting for something to click… for success to catch up with me… My results vary. Today, my results are not everything I need – they’re just all I’m going to get, apparently.

Hard is hard. The chaos and damage of trauma linger way past when we expect it to, and sometimes that really complicates things. It’s easy – too easy – to take all of it personally (it so clearly is not). My poor quality sleep impairs my thinking and limits my resilience. The work day limits my focus – but there, too, I’m struggling. It’s hard to focus. Hard to stay focused when I get there. I’m distracted by what’s going on with me and what’s going on with my partner and his health. Messy.

…Sometimes doing our best doesn’t get results that feel like enough, but it’s not actually possible to do “more than our best”. Frustrating. Enough has to be enough, but often it doesn’t feel like it is. Sometimes, our “best” is within reach, if we just reach farther, dig deeper, but g’damn… when does that ever end?

…I’m tired and I’m frustrated and I’m in pain. Still not personal. Still just sucks. So human. What is there to do about it besides take a minute to breathe, maybe time to meditate, stay on the path, and begin again? Nothing, I guess… but that doesn’t make it any more comforting when it doesn’t feel like enough, or any easier to practice when it doesn’t immediately feel effective.

…What a shitty fucking day this is so far…

…I’ve still got to begin again… again.

This too will pass.

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Categories Allegories, anger, Anxiety, Brain Injury, breathe, Despair, Frustration, grief, health, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Sleepless Nights

Jagged Edges of Loneliness

July 7, 2017 //
5

Living alone sometimes also means feeling lonely. I’m fortunate that it doesn’t come up that often for me; I enjoy living alone. In the words of my Traveling Partner, I “thrive on it”. It’s true. I’m content, I’m happier, I rarely struggle with my symptoms (aside from noise sensitivity and shitty sleep), and it’s been ages since I had a bad meltdown. My symptoms and bad flare ups are mostly triggered by… people. So yeah, living alone works better. But.

Life is a funny thing, is it not? It seems, often, to force me to deal with the shit that is the most difficult when I feel least prepared to do so. Living alone works for me. But. And it’s what comes after the but that is a heavy burden to bear this morning – and I’m “not alone” on this one – but, I am lonely. This morning I ache with it. I woke with it. I went to bed with it. I felt it as a sharp pain late last evening, cuddling the wee stuffed puppy my Traveling Partner gave me as a gift on a whim. (I already love this little stuffed dog, fully house-broken, and very quiet. lol) Loneliness is a real thing, and I really feel it now and again, and it is painful. Anxiety may be a liar, but loneliness? Loneliness is a bully who follows me home, relentlessly mocking me where I am most vulnerable.

Loneliness is actually painful. When you feel it, and you notice, and you wonder that you actually physically hurt – no need to keep wondering, that shit is real. It is uncomfortable. Biology probably intends to drive us to seek out companionship, which makes good sense; we are social creatures, who thrive in company, who succeed together, who celebrate in groups and tribes and families… alone we are… vulnerable to attack. Less well-defended. Small. Singular. Loneliness sucks, and chronic unaddressed loneliness can become mental illness or physical ill health, and even be fatal.

The little stuffed dog surprised me; gift wrapped and left on the front seat of the car, which I’d come to pick up for the week of moving, a couple days early since he wouldn’t be using it, himself. There it was. Soft. So soft. Cute button eyes that sparkle a bit. So soft. I turned to my partner has he came around the corner smiling and tears came to my eyes. His embrace wrapped me in warmth and love and we stood wrapped in each other’s arms a long moment. I miss specific things about cohabitation, mostly to do with intimacy and touch. Like it or not, I’ve made a specific willful exchange in life; I have exchanged hugs, kisses, everyday interactions, contact, intimacy, and frequent sex in favor of improved mental and emotional health (it is generally an unmistakably positive choice that benefits me).

An alternate spelling of “I love you”.

Today, I am lonely. I ache with it. I miss being greeted at the door when I get home in the evening. I miss shared meals. I miss hugs – I miss hugs maybe most of all, even to the point of hugging occasional strangers (in contextually appropriate moments) (if you know me in life, you get how hilarious this actually is). I miss being an everyday part of my partner’s life. I miss having sex, pretty much any day I don’t get to. This morning all of these things make me feel sad. I’m also feeling fairly practical and realistic about it, and understand myself well enough to “get” that it isn’t about inviting random strangers into my bed (didn’t work in my 20s, isn’t the solution now), but I am unquestionably still searching for a really comfortable balance between living alone, and finding/creating the quantity of emotional intimacy and touch that I need to be emotionally well over the long haul.

This morning is hard. My hand reaches without thinking to the little stuffed dog. I scratch its ears as though it were real. I stroke its soft “fur”. A real dog? A real cat? Other pets? I’ve got both baggage and boundaries in this area. Pets are not a good solution to the loneliness issue for me.  I used to have cats. They absolutely destroyed some precious things I could not replace…and… they walk in their poop, then all over everything else. Just no. Dogs? I grew up with dogs. I even like dogs. But… being responsible for another living creature’s entire livelihood and well-being isn’t something I’m super well-qualified for, frankly, otherwise I might have done the motherhood thing… and… dogs smell bad (to me), and caring for a dog well is a huge time commitment…and… okay, okay, I just have baggage and it wouldn’t be a great fit, can we leave it there? lol Chinchillas? More chaos and damage, and… they seem to me to be every bit as sentient as any primate, so that just feels too much like keeping a prisoner. I can’t. Guinea pigs, gerbils, hamsters, reptiles… I’ve had pets. Lots. (I’ve got an aquarium now, and that’s about my speed, really.) They don’t fully “solve for X” in this equation.

Filling the hole in my experience labeled “I miss being touched” with animal companionship would be, realistically, a second best (for me). Instead, I’ll attempt to be more aware of my needs, learn to communicate them more clearly, learn new/more/other ways to take care of me that may meet those specific needs – bitch about it, undoubtedly – and walk on, wiping my tears away and getting back to other things.

But. I do get lonely. Yes, it hurts. Finding some sanity, contentment, and balance are actually worth the hurting right now, even in this shitty lonely moment. I just have to begin again, and do my best to take care of the woman in the mirror. We’ve always got each other. It’s generally enough.

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Frustration, grief, loneliness, Love, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, solo hiking, Summer, The Art of Being, women

One Thing and Then Another

December 16, 2016 //
0

I’m home. The busy work day is behind me. The week is finished. I sit quietly taking it in; I don’t work tomorrow. I am home. I am alone. Tonight… I’m even lonely. It happens. Just using the word, my eyes tear up a bit. I’m okay, just very human. Tired. In pain. Frustrated by the world every time I hear an adult conversation in passing, or read the news. “Stick a fork in me…” I sigh out loud, the sound of it in the room seems oddly out-of-place with the quiet.

A shower later, and a change into comfy clothes, I’m still in this strange place, poised between contentment and despair. There’s no particular reason for it, really… it’s winter. It’s been a busy week at work. Is that all this is? Am I just tired? I’m struggling to manage some of my self-care basics with the new job. I’m pushing “too hard”, taking too few breaks, getting too little rest… but I also love the job, feel passionate about the progress we’re making, and feel very valued and appreciated. What do I do with that? The long commutes make the days very long indeed, and the evenings very short.

I feel myself sort of… pull back. From everything. Closing the door on “extra people” – as if the friends and loved ones outside the workplace are not in fact far more important to me, day-to-day, moment-to-moment, than even my most esteemed colleague. I come home at the end of the day. Close the door. Sit down. Being fair to my self and my circumstances, it’s rare to feel other than contented on a quiet evening after work, these days. Tonight is different. I remind myself that the sensation of “always” that feels so dull and bleak and immovable is, itself, a part of this feeling – and every sad strained drop of it is pure emotion. Chemistry. Lacking in real meaning, or substance. It’s more a drug than an experience. Squashing it doesn’t help – never has. Venting… meh. I’ve had mixed success there, and my suspicion is that it is the camaraderie of sharing the tale, the connected moment, that results in any apparent success – and fuck, I already know that experiencing an intimate emotional (positive) connection with another human being is a fast track to losing the blues. This is not news.

…But I ache, and I’m tired, and… I’d also like very much to be alone. Now isn’t that a bitch? Feeling lonely, and still wanting to be alone. What the fuck do I do with that?? Well. In this particular instance, I light a fire in the fireplace. I put on some soup. (I made a tasty robust 15 bean soup yesterday in the slow cooker, while I worked from home. It’ll be even better today.) I put on my fuzziest, comfy-cosiest, softest spa socks. I did some yoga. Took some time to meditate. I started choosing to let the stress fall away. I looked the loneliness in the face, and let it be what it is, without piling self-criticism, disappointment, or additional demands on top of it. I lit the lights on the Giftmas tree – and grudgingly made room for the awareness that I was smiling, at least a little. One thing at a time. I started treating myself better, one thing at a time. Rather than continue down the unpleasant path of criticizing my crappy treatment of myself, I’m making a point to go ahead and treat myself better. Right now. Only that. We become what we practice.

Soup will be ready soon. It’s later than I generally have dinner, but I’m also not sleepy. Just tired… and the kind of tired that is mostly brain-tired. Giving my brain a rest isn’t always about sleep. My fingers find the edge of the book I am reading… soup first, though. Later, sleep.

Tomorrow I can begin again.

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5, winter

The “L Word”

October 6, 2015 //
2

I spent last night sick, and disinclined to write. Tonight, although I was in quite a lot of pain and my traveling partner was feeling somewhat unwell, we spent a handful of hours hanging out. I am still smiling. I’m inclined to say more – certainly the evening is on my mind. I don’t know that I have the words.

Sometimes when I hang out with someone, I walk away from the interaction still feeling very much that we are strangers. Other times – other people – it is easy to connect deeply, to be open and comfortable, to be easy with each other, and walk away afterward feeling closer, and feeling connected. This evening was more than just a pleasant good time together. We spoke intimately on difficult topics, shared our emotions comfortably, and gently, and when we said good-bye at the end of the evening I felt heard, and I felt I knew a little more about my partner’s heart than I did before. I even felt a little more well-understood, myself.

It was an ordinary enough evening when it started. Then, somewhere midway through some possibly completely unrelated bit of conversation, he said…something.  My eyes filled with tears, and his filled with puzzlement. “You said the ‘L word’, I replied, trying to smile. “Loneliness,” I continued, “I’m not very good at talking about it.” I struggled to regain my composure (there really wasn’t anything wrong at all) and explained that for some reason, just hearing the word “loneliness” has the potential to cause my eyes to tear up. He looked at me with such love and empathy. There was no hint of awkwardness, or strain. We talked awhile about loneliness in general, and in our own experiences in life. We talked about solitude, and the things that differentiate those experiences one from the other. It was beautiful. I feel comforted, and supported. I feel loved.

The listening thing is huge. It wasn’t obvious whether or not my traveling partner felt it too. I’ve been practicing ‘listening deeply’; I find the most elegant and lovely explanation in a favorite book on mindful love (How to Love by Thich Nhat Hanh).  The extraordinary intimacy of the conversation, and the evening, was quite wonderful. Comfortable. Easy. The result? A very secure feeling of loving and being loved.

Love.

Love.

I don’t have much of real value to share about tonight; I am wrapped in love, and inclined to relax, feet up, just smiling. Maybe for a while. Some evenings, I sit in the twilight and I wonder. Tonight, I sit in the twilight and marvel.

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Categories autumn, Brain Injury, Love, Menopause, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5, women, Words
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