I'm Not Lonely, I'm Just Alone

Whenever I go to write about loneliness, I stop myself. It just feels so sad, and I don’t want people to think of me as sad or – perish the thought – feel sorry for me.

But I’m processing some thoughts on loneliness at the moment and so, as usual, the best way for me to work them out is here, on the page.

Today I am meant to be at my friend, Wendy’s funeral. And I’m not. Why? Because I couldn’t bear the thought of going alone. That is the truth, though it doesn’t feel great to share it.

It’s a long way from where I am in the south of England, perhaps five or six hours drive, similar on the train, it felt like a really lonely journey to be taking. Plus, I’m no good at funerals, in fact, I’m helpless at them. I am really bad at goodbyes on a good day, let alone the greatest and most permanent goodbye of all.

I couldn’t bear the idea of driving there alone, attending the service alone, and driving home alone. And so I didn’t go. And that makes me sad too. I had wanted to be able to be there for Wendy’s daughters.

But why couldn’t I bear it? After all, I am used to being alone. I live alone (apart from my 11-year-old daughter but she only seems to appear from her bedroom for meals these days), I work alone, I walk my dog alone. I don’t actually socialise that much either (ok, read never). And the reason for that is that I am perfectly happy being alone. My life is full enough with my writing, my reading, my cooking, my dogwalking, my child-rearing (on the rare occasions I see her!).

Someone asked me this week if I wanted a partner and I replied in all honesty no, no I don’t, I don’t feel that my life is lacking anything that I need another human being to fill it. Sometimes I look at other people in relationships and I am happy for them, and sometimes – just sometimes – I feel perhaps a twinge of envy, but mostly I feel relief.

Except for when it comes to days like today when I so wished I would have had someone who would put their hand in mine, drive me up to the funeral and back again, pass me tissues as I wept and put their arm around me.

It’s not just sad occasions when I am so accutely aware of my single status. A couple of years ago I was invited to a friend’s ruby wedding anniversary dinner and party. It was again somewhere I needed to travel to, and I would of course need to do it alone, and I didn’t go because I couldn’t bear to attend on my own. My friend was understandably upset with me because if you’ve never been alone – particularly not for forty years – you don’t really know what it feels like to do everything alone. Tiring is one way of describing it.

Another friend had a joint 60th birthday party a year or two ago, again, for the same reason, I didn’t go. Just the thought of travelling, of walking into a room alone, not knowing anyone. I couldn’t do it. I felt ashamed of myself.

Even when I got my master’s degree a few years ago, I did not go to my graduation, or pose for the obligatory portrait in a cap and gown, because I would have been doing it alone.

And family gatherings too, where over the years my cousins come with their partners, and I am always alone with my child, still feeling like the kid myself, not fully adult.

But why should I feel like that? I have spent more of my adult life alone than in a couple and that has mostly been through choice, it’s not like I’m getting used to some new single status. And didn’t I just say that I was happy alone? And so is this evidence that I’m not really? Am I lying to myself?

I wrote in The Times ten years ago about being a single parent to a baby, and I said that it was not the tough times that made it so hard (the sleepless nights, the worry when she was sick, the responsibility all on my shoulders), it was having no-one to share the good times: her first laugh; her first word; her first crawl; her first steps.

Her father came and went, for ten years we were merely an option to him, and so he was not there for those moments and instead I shared them on Facebook, or with my friends, or with my mum. Yes, I mainly feel like I have parented with my mum.

But even in the times when he was present, when we were married, when we lived together, he wasn’t there for me, not for the good times, or the bad. In fact, I can guarantee if we were together now, he would not be accompanying me to Wendy’s funeral.

And so I am well aware that even people who are in relationships can feel so deeply alone. Or, at least they might feel alone, but they don’t look alone. And that is often what people prefer, not to look alone. Not to be that person who hasn’t been chosen. We might wonder what others might think of us? But isn’t that just ego?

Although perhaps it is something deeper than that, something which holds the key as to why we don’t talk about being alone, or admit to feeling lonely. I think it goes back to our nomadic days, a fear of being excluded from the herd, of having to roam the plains alone, that being alone means there is something wrong with you, some reason people don’t want to be with you. Are you diseased? Lame? Starving because you’re bad at hunting? Do you have bad genes and so no-one wants to mate with you?

I am none of these things – if you feel alone, I am sure you are none of these things either.

Mostly I am alone because my life is so good and I feel so content and fulfilled that I don’t need someone else to make it feel better. Surely that’s a healthy sign? Except for on a day like today.

I rarely feel lonely, but I am alone. There is a difference.

Am I feeling this more accutely as I am getting older, I wonder? Would I have gone to that funeral ten years ago? Or is age and wisdom teaching me that to put myself in that situation, to be so upset, to deplete the reserves that I so desperately need as a single parent provider, is not a sensible idea? Do I need to fear that I am sounding or being selfish?

Wendy didn’t actually want a funeral, but she knew that her daughters wanted one as part of their own grieving process, so I don’t think she would be offended at me not attending.

I can still honour Wendy and celebrate her life from here. This afternoon I am holding a zoom get together for her friends who also cannot make it to the funeral. I will light my Wendy candle, and we will talk about her and share stories, and feel like we are coming together even though we are miles apart.

Perhaps that is my role today, to bring these people together who wouldn’t be otherwise. Because some of them are alone, like me.

I know Wendy would have appreciated that.

As I was finishing writing this, someone knocked at the door. It was the guy who I had booked to walk my dog today when I had thought I could handle the funeral alone. I told him that I hadn’t liked to cancel him when I decided not to go and he asked me why I hadn’t gone.

‘I just felt so alone,’ I said to him, and promptly burst into tears. I couldn’t help it.

He was very sweet and gave me a hug.

I am not telling you this so that you feel sorry for me, but just as an example that sometimes it’s ok to tell people that you feel lonely, or indeed that you feel alone.

And I was not excluded from the herd for admitting this, in fact, I was embraced.

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