THE SPECIFICITY OF LONELINESS


I’ve thought a lot about loneliness. I’ve even done my primary research on the subject. Paradoxically, being alone is not necessarily loneliness. The difference between the two is in the quality of the experience. I often enjoy being alone; I do not enjoy feeling lonely.

I’ve discovered there are a variety of states of loneliness. There’s an existential loneliness – a sense of “nobody will ever really understand what it’s like to be me” – that none of us can escape. There’s a generalized loneliness that can be remedied by going to church, or to class, or to a party where you get together with other people; even going to the mall can serve to remind us that we do not have to be alone.

Then there’s a more specific kind of loneliness that’s embodied in missing a particular person, or place, or state of being that is gone forever; I’m lonely for my friend Barry who died recently; I’m lonely for my cabin in Morro Bay that burned down; I’m lonely for my lost youth. There’s a quality of terminal longing in that kind of loneliness.

The worst kind of loneliness is to be sharing a bed with a spouse or lover where good feelings no longer exist. However, after a divorce or breakup there can be a perverse loneliness for the illusion that kept one in a bad relationship for way too long. For myself, divorce became necessary nineteen years later when I realized my loneliness in the marriage was rooted in my feeling that his relationship with me wasn’t personal – or personal enough. I’d become “the wife” – just an interchangeable female unit.

Temporary loneliness can be poignant with hope as it is presumed to be a fixable thing. I’m lonely for Ron, my youngest son, from whom I’ve been long estranged. I’m lonely for winters spent in Guatemala. I’m lonely for peace of mind, or a state of grace.

Dwelling on loneliness of any kind is a trap, a futile comparison game, a solitary road to hiding out in the past, a long damp slide into the swamp of self- pity and depression. So, what’s a human being to do?

I happen to be a do-it-myself woman. In my crying-on-the-freeway days when I couldn’t see where I was going I could sometimes pull myself back from the edge by reciting to myself what I could see out of the car windows: “There’s a blue Honda in front of me; the light is red; there’s the sign for Southcenter.” This white-knuckled reality orientation could get me safely home.

After that point it was back-to-basics self-therapy. This action program consisted of three parts: 1. Exercise: take a walk or go swimming. 2. Talking: phone somebody, and therapists do count. 3. Write in my journal or write a poem or write an essay.

And, here it is!

SURROGATE DAUGHTERS & MOTHERS


In thinking about daughters and mothers I realize how important are the women who mother us; and those we mother as well. My Auntie Merly understood my aspiration to write in a way my mother never did; and quietly encouraged me. She and I were so similar in temperament that a friend who knew us both couldn’t believe we weren’t mother and daughter. Merlyn had three daughters of her own, but had room in her heart for me. And room in her home when I was sixteen and refused to live with my newly married, and very pregnant, mother.

In retrospect I realize my flower-child mother did the best she could. That cliché usually gives me small comfort. In retrospect I also realize that I did the best I could for my own daughter. I suspect that gives her small comfort as well.

Maureen, ten years younger than me, mothered me for a while after my divorce; when I no longer needed rescuing, our relationship foundered. Kathi B. and George mothered me, providing shelter for me; when I was looking for an affordable place to live with my two younger boys they bought a house to rent to me affordably. My friend Barry mothered me on occasion.

My former mother-in-law, Mae Nucci, mothered me; she planned and produced my wedding to her son; she sewed for me; she thrust bits of money upon me at every opportunity both when I was married and even afterwards when I visited her. Despite the fact that she never did understand why I divorced her son, when it came to money, she would not take no for an answer. I learned not to go shopping with her for groceries or anything where she could arm-wrestle me to pay the bill. Ultimately, after my father-in-law died, she gave me the small motorhome they had planned to travel in.

Sally Hartley, ten years older than me, became someone of whom I could ask questions about the perils of dating at the tender age of forty. Jan B always gave me her motherly opinion whether I wanted it or not. My daughter, Deborah, mothered me from time to time. In the short run she was a lifesaver and much appreciated; in the long run I took her for granted and things turned toxic. In Guatemala both Sarah and Deet, generous and gregarious, mother me in different ways; one provides me a place to stay, the other feeds me.

Surrogate daughters for me included Rosie and Mary L. both of whom needed so much at a time when I had a lot to give and a need to give it. I’ve mothered my niece, Lisa, from time to time; and, on occasion, my Auntie Esther when she needed an advocate. I mothered Barry during her fight with breast cancer when she would let me; I loved that she got comfortable with asking me to run errands for her and didn’t require me to read her mind. Lisa from the swimming pool is a daughter for today.

A common denominator here seems to be, that, surrogate or not, a generosity of spirit is useful in the relationship between daughters and mothers