Let’s talk about Loneliness

On Thursday I spoke to our Editor Stuart about possible topics for me to write to you about and he said, what we’re consistently hearing from My Weekly readers is their anxiety over loneliness. It’s partly and understandably left over from lockdown but also as we get older opening up our circle and making new friends seems so much harder.

It took me a while to write this because I’ve spent my life fearful of loneliness whenever asked by a magazine in an interview, what frightens you? I would always answer instead of the usual spiders, flying or hights, loneliness because being on my own was genuinely something that scared me to death, I couldn’t get my head around the thought of it.

And then I was.

At 52 my marriage brutally fell apart, and up until that time in my life I’d never been alone, I was a fully formed capable healthy adult yet irrationally frightened about what was going to happen to me.

However, the next five years were a revelation and I met myself for the very first time. I was too proud to ever let it show but there were days when I cried with the pain of feeling lost, my world and all its responsibilities were constantly pushing down on my shoulders the future scared me but how stupid was that because there are very few certainties in life and the one I’d put on red was in tatters. I’d wake up in the morning wondering when I was going to go home, in fact where was home? My glass wasn’t just half empty it was completely empty. I filled my head with fear, frightened of things that hadn’t happened and probably weren’t going to happen Sundays were the worst I used to call them Sad Sundays I’d imagine everyone, apart from me, having an Instagram picture perfect joyous Sunday. Until it dawned on me loneliness wasn’t the problem, I was my negative interpretation of my life I’d lost perspective I didn’t have cancer I was wallowing in my own pity and I wasn’t seeing this precious time as a big fat learning curve to grow from. My emotional adventures would fill this magazine but there’s one you might find helps

I’m at heart a homebody I love looking after my nest and happy when people are in it enjoying the fruits of my labour. So instead of shutting the front door I opened it, I invited people over placed one pot wonders in front of them (many of which you will find in the cookery pages of My Weekly) and started to get my confidence back, friends and friends of friends loved it some contributed with pudding or even their own favourite one pot wonder my kitchen became a regular hangout.

The Beatles sang

All the lonely people
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong?

Well, they belong around a table chatting, eating, drinking interacting and washing up!!

I will be eternally grateful for the experience because whatever life throws at me now, I’m a better more capable empathetic person than I was before.