52 Card Project 2021: Week 27: Loneliness
Jul. 9th, 2021 05:31 pmI'm uncomfortable with this week's theme, although it was definitely the right one. It feels too personal somehow. And I'm not satisfied with the card--perversely, it doesn't seem quite personal enough.
I spent some time with other people this week: we gathered at my sister's lakeside home for a Fourth of July celebration. I've had some pleasant get-togethers with Eric, too.
But the 5th of July was also my 35th wedding anniversary, and all I wanted to do that day was to stay in bed and cry. Which took me by surprise: I was fine the day before, and I hadn't expected the terrible upwelling of grief that I experienced.
In the days since then, it has seemed to me that what I was feeling was not only grief but loneliness.
I've talked about being a widow and about grief, and I've collaged about them before (see, e.g., the Widow card). For me, the sense I have of being a widow and of grieving, and of being lonely are overlapping experiences.
I live in my house alone. I am not meant to live alone, truly. I'm an extrovert. I like to talk with my housemates, and laugh, and cook for other people. I would love to have a pet to keep my company, but the pet I want the most, a cat, is impossible because I'm so terribly allergic. It doesn't seem satisfactory to try a substitute such as a hamster or an iguana or a ferret. I had an occasional meal with another person in the last week, but I mostly eat alone.
It isn't natural.
It isn't right.
It isn't how my life should be. And I resent it, and it makes me so sad.
I'm not living alone because I want to. I'm living a solitary life because the person who I had intended to live with for the rest of our lives left me, even though he wanted desperately to stay with me.
I thought for a long time about how to express loneliness in images, and I'm impatient with myself: what I came up with feels like a cliche. The images are not original ideas, nor are they about me, about my life.
But then, I live alone, meaning there is nobody to take pictures of me, standing in a field in front of a solitary tree, that I can use to make a collage. Ironic, that.
I spent a ridiculous amount of time finding and rejecting various images. The final result feels more like I'd exhausted myself to the point that I gave up, rather than finding what was right.
I've had a lot of lingering sadness this week. And yet complaining about my loneliness seems embarrassing somehow, something that my inner Elinor Dashwood doesn't think is appropriate to admit. I'm not quite sure why.
Loneliness

Click here to read about the 52 card project and see the year's gallery.
I spent some time with other people this week: we gathered at my sister's lakeside home for a Fourth of July celebration. I've had some pleasant get-togethers with Eric, too.
But the 5th of July was also my 35th wedding anniversary, and all I wanted to do that day was to stay in bed and cry. Which took me by surprise: I was fine the day before, and I hadn't expected the terrible upwelling of grief that I experienced.
In the days since then, it has seemed to me that what I was feeling was not only grief but loneliness.
I've talked about being a widow and about grief, and I've collaged about them before (see, e.g., the Widow card). For me, the sense I have of being a widow and of grieving, and of being lonely are overlapping experiences.
I live in my house alone. I am not meant to live alone, truly. I'm an extrovert. I like to talk with my housemates, and laugh, and cook for other people. I would love to have a pet to keep my company, but the pet I want the most, a cat, is impossible because I'm so terribly allergic. It doesn't seem satisfactory to try a substitute such as a hamster or an iguana or a ferret. I had an occasional meal with another person in the last week, but I mostly eat alone.
It isn't natural.
It isn't right.
It isn't how my life should be. And I resent it, and it makes me so sad.
I'm not living alone because I want to. I'm living a solitary life because the person who I had intended to live with for the rest of our lives left me, even though he wanted desperately to stay with me.
I thought for a long time about how to express loneliness in images, and I'm impatient with myself: what I came up with feels like a cliche. The images are not original ideas, nor are they about me, about my life.
But then, I live alone, meaning there is nobody to take pictures of me, standing in a field in front of a solitary tree, that I can use to make a collage. Ironic, that.
I spent a ridiculous amount of time finding and rejecting various images. The final result feels more like I'd exhausted myself to the point that I gave up, rather than finding what was right.
I've had a lot of lingering sadness this week. And yet complaining about my loneliness seems embarrassing somehow, something that my inner Elinor Dashwood doesn't think is appropriate to admit. I'm not quite sure why.

Click here to read about the 52 card project and see the year's gallery.