On Loneliness

I should not live by myself. I don't live by myself...usually. However, my husband left on a business trip five days ago and I've been living alone for that long. That's how I know that a solitary life is not a good idea for me.

I've long enjoyed solitude. Right now the house is totally quiet except for the hum of the computer fan. I had music on earlier but tired of it and chose silence instead. I could turn the television on, but doing so has no appeal to me. I'm okay with silence. For a while. I don't need noise but I do need someone to talk to now and then.

Five days of solitary living. And coincidently, five evening trips to church events during that time - 32 miles each way. Every night. Just me and my minivan and the radio and my PDA/mp3 player and a set of "Adventures in Odyssey" tapes covering mostly the same roads five times for a total of 350 miles or so. (Various routes and a couple of detours to run errands added some extra miles.). I made half-hearted attempts to find traveling companions but didn't resort to begging. I figured there would be plenty of people to chat with once I got there. It turns out most everyone I knew had plenty of other people to chat with. If my goal was to find companionship, the results weren't wildly successful. Most of the event consisted of listening to sermons that left me full of unshared negative reactions and a certainty that pinning someone down long enough to share those reactions was not a good idea. Some of them burst out in my last post and follow-ups on a message board where patient people responded kindly. Listening to so many offensive words without responding in any way is difficult. I suppose I could have simply quit attending and stayed home alone instead but I was drawn back every evening by the hope of meaningful exchange.

I haven't sat alone in the house in between the evening events. I've been out. I have a part-time job that brings me into contact with people. But the loneliness is definitely getting to me. The house is quiet now but I heard the scratchings of a mouse one night. It showed up in the basement room where I was sitting at the computer. I talked to it, scolding it for coming into my house where I would be obliged to get a trap and some peanut butter and attempt to kill it. It didn't talk back, just disappeared behind some insulation. The outdoor dogs and cat aren't much good for conversation either. Nor the fish, although they do congregate in the part of the tank closest to me if I pause in their vicinity.

I have a telephone. I could call someone. But the people who are the most interesting partners for conversation aren't sitting at home waiting for me to call and fill their evening with chit-chat. Even when I'm lonely, I'm still no more inclined to make telephone calls than any other time. In fact, I find myself less and less inclined to do anything -- fix myself something to eat or tackle the many projects that I could undertake with all this uninterrupted time. So much opportunity and the best I can do is another boring blog entry about me, me, me.

I can survive living alone for a few days at a time, but the words I'm not speaking build up inside me and woe to anyone who offers me a listening ear. I tend to develop run-at-the-mouth tendencies when I have this much solitude.

My husband will be home tomorrow. That will be good. And in a few days the first college kid comes home for the summer. The empty nest will no longer be empty. Things are going to start happening around here. I may as well enjoy the silence tonight.