A (Lack) of Loneliness

Years ago, I was on a retreat with other high school kids from my church. We had a tradition of climbing to the top of the mountain to see the sunrise one morning, which necessitated waking up at a painfully early hour (most of us just didn’t ever go to bed the night before, tbh), driving a few miles to the bottom of the climb, then all spilling out and heading up to the top over twisty, narrow paths.

We would run back down, full tilt, after the sun came up.

My first year I made it to the top with the others. But while I started out running down, I got scared I would fall and I got out of breath. There were other kids behind me, so I stuck my hand out to grab a tree trunk, swung around it, and let people pass me.

I walked the rest of the way down. I couldn’t convince my legs to run anymore after not sleeping and then climbing a mountain.

And when I got to the bottom I was alone.

The van was gone.

I was alone in a parking lot at the bottom of a mountain two miles from the house, at six in the morning.

I stood and waited for a few minutes, thinking maybe that it was a joke. They were hiding, and would be pulling back in to pick me up to go for donuts in town and would tease me about being last.

But they never came back.

I cried as I walked the two miles back to the house on legs that were already aching and trembling.

That crushing feeling of being left behind is a type of loneliness I don’t know how to describe. It’s devastating and frightening and hard.

I cried a lot after asking b to leave. I cried more after telling him I wanted a divorce.

And I know it doesn’t make much sense to say that I felt abandoned, but I did. I felt that I was being left with my normal life..only with a giant hole where a partner should have fit.

I don’t feel like that anymore.

I’m not the awkward fifteen year old who didn’t fit in with her Back Home group and got left on the mountain while everyone else went to get donuts. I’m not the wife waiting for her husband to ask for help.

So I thought, maybe, that it was time to take a step out. Join okcupid. Try dating.

I tried. I chatted some. I even went on one date. He was nice, but..

I’m not even interested. Not in him. Not in anybody.

Maybe someday I will be. Maybe I won’t.

I’m not lonely right now. I’m ok on my own.

And that’s a good feeling.