The Middle of Loneliness

I know I mostly write about how happy I am to be single, and I am. That doesn't mean, however,that I don't experience loneliness every so often.

It wasn't until I felt relatively settled in my role as a single mom that I began feeling loneliness. At first, I dealt with it the way most people deal with it: try and find someone.

For a variety of reasons, that didn't work. I think the overarching reason was that I didn't really want it to work. Once I accepted that about myself, the feelings of loneliness would usually only last a couple of minutes. I would think about what life is really like living with someone else (besides the girls), and that would be enough to get me over it.

I say it constantly, every emotion has a beginning, a middle, and an end.

Well, recently, the middle of loneliness lasted longer than usual. Riley was with my parents, Sylvia was at a meeting, and I was home alone. Usually, that's cause for celebration for me, but this time, I felt loneliness. And this time, I wasn't thinking about actually living with someone. I was thinking about courtship.


I was thinking, it might be nice if someone took me to the opening night of The Book of Mormon. Not a spouse or live-in boyfriend, but a date. Like, someone else paid for the ticket!

I've already bought my tickets for The Book of Mormon. I'm going with the girls and some friends, and I'm really excited about it.

But I just had that thought from nowhere, and I felt a little wistful. I didn't try to mask it with the TV or music. I just sat there and felt it. I didn't cry or even feel like crying. I wasn't fighting back anything. I was just feeling it.

And then it was time to pick up Sylvia, and I went about my life again. And I wasn't feeling it anymore.

Later that night, after Sylvia had gone to bed, I was alone again, but not lonely at all. Once again, the solitude felt good.

I have a pretty awesome life. And the not so great moments make me cherish the good ones even more.