Solitude Is Not Loneliness

For the last month, I’ve been battling with feeling waves of loneliness and sadness, only to realize that I’m just trying to regulate my body again after trauma and loss. So of course there’s all kinds of emotions rolled in with the journey.

Have I had moments of loneliness? Absolutely. But am I actually lonely or do I just need to remember to embrace the solitude? Because they are not the same. Loneliness is a feeling that nobody cares. Solitude is the beauty to be able to recharge your soul and revert to the version of that you that existed before the world told you who to be. After almost four years in a relationship, I find myself at a crossroads, rediscovering and brushing off the dust off of who I am at the core. Thinking that I’m alone again, but actually reminding myself to feel experience the solitude to heal.

My mom passed away in November due to complications from an unsuccessful heart surgery. She had the best surgeon who was very confident with the outcome. The odds were in her favor as the procedure has a 98% success rate. But after the first surgery that went longer than anticipated and unable to be completed, more problems arose over the next several days and she declined rapidly, never being able to finish the original surgery and having more surgeries in the interim. After six days of waiting, declining, and hoping, then finally accepting and realizing that it was the end of the road, she was finally free.

Nothing prepares you for losing a parent. We are all guilty of thinking we have time; see that friend next week, make the call another day, see family at the next holiday, reschedule or cancel that lunch date, or simply taking it for granted that your mom lives 10 minutes away… except that in the blink of an eye, she’s not anymore. No more phone calls venting or needing parenting and dating advice, scheduling pedicures together, stopping by for a quick lunch during my break, checking in just because the sound of her voice brings feels safe, or just having the comfort in the knowledge she was close by. Take the time, don’t procrastinate and revel in the moments you have. You literally never know when they will be gone. So while she may not be where she was, she is everywhere that I am. I have reminders of her everywhere and see her in the beauty that is all around me. I will miss her with every fiber of my being, but I can only hope that I will make her proud as I continue on my journey as woman and a mother, following in her footsteps and her example of love, kindness and acceptance of everyone she surrounded herself with. She never made you feel small and always thought of the positive in everyone. I can only hope to emulate the same.

So here I find myself alone; no kids around, no longer in a relationship and it’s strange. After my separation and divorce, it was chaos. In the flurry of everything entailed in the divorce process itself, you’re reconfiguring everything. Yes, there were really dark moments of feeling alone, but there isn’t really enough time to sit and let it take over you because you’re figuring out work schedules, moving, daycare, school, splitting parenting time, ensuring the kids are settling into their new normal, and then you have to settle into your new routine too. So at that time, it felt more like doing things by myself and doing it alone. Now, it feels different. I’m still doing it all by myself, but the kids are well into their schedules and day to day routines, they’re older, easier to communicate with, work is regular and life is just more settled. The difference being that now I find myself at home without a partner and I’m having to train myself how to be a woman on my own without my kids, finding my own identity outside of “I’m a mom.” There is time now to sit in stillness when the kids aren’t here. This is the real process of enjoying my solitude. Regulating the normalcy in reading a book all day and that it’s OK. Relaxing my anxious mind that everything is OK here. Laundry is done, dishes are done, the house is clean and I actually DON’T need to be DOING something all the time. The stigma of “staying busy” is overrated and quite honestly, unhealthy in my opinion. Balance is necessary in everything, but being able to truly enjoy solitude is a beautiful thing.

I believe that everything does happen for a reason, although we never understand while we are in the thick of it. There is always a lesson. While I have no idea what life will bring me, I accept the path I’ve chosen and am learning to be happy with the present, rather than the potential and hope of what could be.