In Praise of Loneliness
Shortly before the country went into lockdown in 2020, my then-husband of 12 years moved out. I spent the next few months in freefall, trying to care for our kids and pets, plus handle both the divorce and sale of our house on my own while navigating unprecedented times for the collective. By the time I moved into my cute little townhouse in May, I was exhausted and deeply, deeply lonely.
The loneliness I felt that year wasn’t just due to Covid restrictions. It was the realization that I had been ignoring how lonely I was in my marriage, that somehow I had settled into a life that wasn’t meant for me. I was ready to start fresh, but of course, the pandemic made that difficult. I had to learn who I was and what I wanted.
I wouldn’t choose to relive those particular feelings, but I’ve come to appreciate what they taught me. In particular, I have a certain fondness for the loneliness that peaked that summer and what it revealed.
I’ve always been content on my own. I love solitude. As a neurospicy introvert, I need a lot of alone time to recharge. So, the loneliness that hit me that year felt foreign. I leaned heavily on my friends, yet I still struggled to make sense of the loneliness.
Ultimately, befriending it is what got me through. When I started talking to my now-partner, my intuition sensed something there, but I also recognized how loneliness was affecting me—and my Tarot cards kept telling me to wait, lol—so I gave it time. That ended up being the right move, and everything fell into place when the time was right.
Loneliness isn’t bad or wrong. It can be super uncomfortable, even painful, but it’s difficult to ignore—and that’s where its power lies. It can teach us so much and help us understand ourselves on a deeper level. The loneliness I felt in 2020 wasn’t about my marriage ending; it was alerting me to deeper shadow work that needed to be done. And fortunately, because the loneliness was already painful, digging into other discomfort felt manageable.
Solitude is holy, but we need to understand it as such. That starts with facing the real roots of our loneliness. Even before Covid, we were moving further from one another. It became common to feel lonely within our communities. Deep political divisions strained relationships, and for many of us, the pandemic illuminated unresolved trauma, imbalances in family dynamics, and the need to set boundaries. For a lot of people, that meant healing people-pleasing tendencies and distancing from harmful relationships.
For me, and for many others, my deepest connections happen online. I value my friendships with people all over the world—they wouldn’t exist without WhatsApp, Zoom, and social media. But online connection doesn’t replace in-person connection. And yet, finding in-person connection can be difficult. I still don’t really know anyone in the city I moved to, and sometimes that hits me hard.
There’s still a stigma around loneliness, though it seems to have lessened some since the pandemic. Loneliness often feels like a problem we need to solve, and it can feel embarrassing not to have a close group of friends. We start to wonder if something’s wrong with us.
What I’d like you to consider is that your loneliness is both a wound and a source of power. I’d like you to take to heart that you are your own best company. I want you to know that there is nothing wrong with you if you feel isolated or alone. And I believe all of us can find the connections we long for.
Prompts on Loneliness
Some prompts for journaling or Tarot.
Write about a time when being alone felt like a gift rather than a burden. What did you learn in that solitude? How did it nourish you? How can you carry that forward into your current life?
Reflect on a moment when you felt deeply uncomfortable with your loneliness. How did you try to escape it, or what kept you present with it? What would it be like to choose to stay with the discomfort rather than avoid it?
Write about how loneliness might be a doorway to something deeper. What have you discovered about yourself in moments of solitude? What could you learn if you allowed yourself to walk through that portal without fear?
Imagine that on the other side of your loneliness is connection, either with yourself or others. What does that look like? How do you move through your loneliness to reach that place?
If loneliness had a story, what would it be? How has the experience of loneliness shaped your personal narrative? Now, rewrite that story in a way that shifts your perspective on loneliness—how might it be reframed as something empowering or transformative?
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Missed our Writing Loneliness workshop? Stay tuned for the next installments of the Writing Our Selves series! Past and future topics include estrangement, perimenopause, loneliness, and motherhood.