Lonely girl

I feel really lonely tonight. I don't have anyone to tell so I'll write it here. I'm achy all the time and nothing helps. Nothing should help – no healthy way of coping will eliminate the achiness that I feel. Dan is really sick with a cold. It's hard for me to see his face and hear his voice and know that there's nothing I can do. It's even more difficult when I'm already starving for emotional and physical connection. I've been wondering lately how I'm going to make it through when every day feels so unbearably long and empty.

I wonder if there are different kinds of loneliness. Does being lonely for friendship feel the same as being lonely for a spouse? The day that Dan left I went to the mall afterwards and I looked at everyone and wondered what they were feeling. The guy trying to sell me a very expensive hand scrub didn't know that I'd just said goodbye to the love of my life for two and a half months, but I wanted to tell him so. The next day I was buying a booster juice during lunch hour when the high school kids were out and when I listened to their struggles, which consisted mainly of girls not calling back or friends being nasty, I wondered again at how much invisible sorrow there is in the world. I think trouble with friends is definitely painful, but how easy it is to be wrapped up in our own superficial annoyances when others are silently crying out for human connection.

I think that I have quite a few friends, and yet even tonight I feel like there is no one to call. The need to feel connected to another human being is very intense right now. I had a very productive and much needed day of cleaning and running errands, but at the end of the day what I really need is to be wrapped up in love and community. The trouble with having a deployed spouse is that no matter how empty you are, you can't ask anyone else to fill that void. My very best friend in the city has her own marriage to nurture and her own life to live and my church community is loving but still somewhat removed from me in times of need like this. It's scary to call someone you don't really know and ask to be loved because you feel alone in the world.

It crosses my mind often when Dan is away, though I try not to let it control my thoughts, that it would be devastating to lose him. I don't think this because he's in a war zone, I think this because when he's away I can easily imagine being suddenly alone. No one would really know how it feels, no one could do anything about it. I picture suddenly being without the person who knows me better than anyone else in the world, the person who shares every little part of my life and who is there with me in every moment. Who would take his place? I could never ask it of my friends or family. I would be bereft of almost everything that makes my life meaningful. Who would I share day-to-day things with? Who would I tell my every thought to? Who would live through joy and sorrow with me? In the movie Shall We Dance, the wife remarks that people get married so that they have a witness to their lives, someone who commits to acknowledge their existence and testify to their life on earth. Not even the best friend in the world could be as close to me as my dear husband who is my witness.

So what of loneliness? It's the most despised feeling in my long list of feelings. It's the most difficult to deal with because it doesn't get easier with practice. It's here to stay for the evening. It's a feeling completely dependent on another human being reaching out and saying 'I know you're alive and I want to be with you, I remember you.' What if no one notices?