Choices we make when we are scared to be lonely

Have you ever been so lonely that you made a choice that you wouldn't have believed you would make?

I have been thinking about loneliness, a lot. You know when you have a partner, best friend, husband for 19 years, and three kids, loneliness isn't an issue. It's more like, how do I get alone time? But when you are thrust into it, whether it is because of death, separation, or divorce, it is shocking. I don't remember ever feeling lonely when I was married.

The loneliness can be so overwhelming and heavy that we start to look for ways to combat it. If I can just find someone to talk to tonight. If I can just stay busy or not think about it. If I can just replace the loneliness with something else, or someone else.

It's sort of like going to the grocery store when you are really hungry, no good decisions are made when you are lonely.

Tonight I walked out of the YMCA after doing my workout and talking with a good friend and I thought, I feel good. Some days, I feel really good at this. I mean... I worked out, I have all of my Christmas shopping done, and tomorrow I have counseling. Not to brag, but I'm having a really good streak of like four days where I don't feel like I am losing it. But what I realized as I thought about this is that I am feeling good, and not feeling lonely, because I have so much going on.

I have spent a lot of time over the last couple of weeks thinking about 2019 and evaluating my year. Honestly don't ask when I have time to think about this, but this is what I thought about when I was actually alone. I am very rarely actually alone.

What I realized is a couple of things, the first being that this year was crazy. Second, the only times I wasn't desperately lonely was when I was insanely busy. At the beginning of this year, I let my loneliness drive me to test out some online dating. All of this online dating turned out to be just as awful as it might sound. So, I continued to do it for three months.

I learned three things. First, the world is full of very broken and sad people. Second, I needed to do this to learn that I could date and that it was awful. Third, the only thing that drove me to do any of this was loneliness. I thought if I could have someone to chat with I wouldn't feel so horribly alone. If I had someone nice to go to dinner with maybe the emptiness would feel smaller. If someone complimented me or gave me attention, I might feel better.

I made these choices out of loneliness. Then in order to not continue on this crazy dating train, I kept myself running so I would not feel lonely. Which was also bad and I covered that already here. I numbed my loneliness with gardening, biking, reading and bible study.

Today my very wise friend, who tells me good things, and is such an encouragement, said, "What do you do about the loneliness then?"

I said, "Be lonely."

Just like the grief, I have to sit in the loneliness. I have to wait. I cannot run from it or get attention to not feel it. I have been a little extra sad recently about Christmas. The tree makes me sad. The stockings make me sad, and him not being here makes me sad. I went to get a massage last week, a treat I have been doing for myself since there is no one to rub my shoulders. When the lady got done last week and left the room, I started sobbing. Not like tears running down my cheeks, but like body shaking sobbing.

I didn't even see it coming. I cried and thought about it and sat in and told God about how awfully lonely I was. We can't run and we can't hide. We have to wait. We can't numb it. We have to feel it. Feeling it is scary, because what if we always feel like this? What if I am always lonely? Then what?