Welcome to the Club!

Social Isolation.

It's a thing we all been doing since March 25 or so.
We have been shutting ourselves up within our houses.
Not going out in to public.
Not being with others, except those in our immediate family.
Being very...well, isolated.

*****

For five years I have spent the weekends and summers mostly by myself.
Social Isolation, before it was a thing.

It's true I wasn't always alone, I have dated now and then, and I do have family and friends I could and would see.  I used to dread Friday nights, even hate them.  Friday nights meant I would leave school, go home to an empty house, and know I would have 61 long hours alone until Monday morning.

I was forced to deal with my isolation.  No one made me stay home.  I could freely go out and be around others. However, one's own brain certainly gets ideas stuck in it, which does not allow you to move emotionally forward. Self doubts, societal norms and ghosts in my mind from my past used to eat me alive.

I really did need to learn to look inside and love myself.  I am comfortable now, and truth be told even crave quiet, alone time.  I am not as bothered by it as I once was.  It has taken this pandemic to make me realize just how much I've grown.  I don't mind going to concerts or movies alone. Of course I enjoy being with others, but I can happily do so much by myself.  I have learned to reach out and ask if I want company.  I have learned how to make plans with friends.  It sounds silly, but I have placed so much, too much really, value on being married that when it ended, all I could see was that I was a failure and everyone around me MUST see it too.  Silly me.  I do know that now.

In the past several months, other have freaked out by feeling trapped in their own spaces.  I have had people I haven't really heard from in awhile "check" on me, mostly because they are suddenly isolated and claim they are worried about me.  Ha!  No offense folks, but where were you four years ago when I was at rock bottom?  Here is what you need to know about someone who has found themselves single after years of being married and raising kids who are technically out of the house...we are solid and cool and fine and so able to handle this pandemic isolation crap.  In fact, what I have to say to you is...

Welcome to the Club! Relax.  We are all going to be just fine.