For most people, being alone and lonely is quite painful.
To a loner and an only child like myself, not so much. There is some self-care benefit to learning to like yourself being alone, being content to ride out a solitary existance, to accept life’s circumstances, for at least the time being. Not everyone is fortunate enough to have grown up to marry their high school sweetheart and live happily ever after. I would have preferred that to all the social rituals one has to maneuver around. My daughter did marry her high school sweetheart, in spite of me, her mother, divorced, having short-term relationships since that have been few and far between, often underwhelming, non-reciprocative and disappointing. I am by nature a chaste person, I don’t fall in love easily, its rare but when I do, I love hard, with everything I have in self-sacrifice. Divorce wears heavy on my heart, I hate the thought of being a quitter.
As a military wife at age 20, my then husband was deployed for up to 6 months at a time without us living under the same roof. During his tour of dutys, I alone was raising 2 stepsons as well as an infant daughter we had together. I saw many military wives in my neighborhood struggle emotionally with their partners’ extended absences. Being alone for months at a time was not the reason why my marriage didn’t last. I always had something to occupy my mind and free time, whether it be creative arts or volunteer work. As my own mother referred to me when I was growing up, I’m an “easy keeper”. I became a better mother and prolific at the responsibilities required to run a household by myself. But the weirdest part is I have never experienced feelings of loneliness in my life, ever. At least as how others describe it to me. Old soul, perhaps.
It sure would have helped me as a child to know there were other children “like” me, who shut off the world around themselves and lived alone within a construct of their own design, when not required to answer to the outside for something. I’ve lived my whole life up to my late 40s, not really understanding what made me tick so off rhythm from everyone else I knew around me. I thought I was alone in this journey. I had Asperger’s all this time and didn’t know it, most likely caused from being born in a trauma-induced, premature breech birth. I’ve long since overcome next-level shyness so that I could become more socially adept and not impoverished. I’m still unusually quiet and reclusive for a woman, and most people don’t “get” me, so my social circle is tighter than a gnat’s arse.
And I prefer it that way.
