The Days I Most Hate Being Single
Yesterday was a fine day. I got good work done. I had meetings with fun, good-hearted people. Dad and I located the pooches after they took a wander across the river. Nothing overwhelmingly great. Nothing overwhelmingly hard. A day. A simple, normal day.
Yet, on the ride back over to the farm, my heart ached. Bad. I turned off the audiobook and just drove, a puppy sound asleep on the seat behind me. I passed all the political signs sprouting by driveways and crossed miles of pavement divided by two yellow lines. I drove and prayed and cried.
Ten times. Fifteen times I picked up my phone to call someone and found I didn’t really have anyone to call. Or more accurately, I didn’t really have any real reason to call anyone. Not reason enough, anyway, to disturb dinner or bedtime. I was just lonely, and I wanted to talk with someone.
It’s these days, these ordinary days that are the hardest for me as a single person. On really bad days, where the world rips me raw or tears my heart in two, I feel justified in calling friends to weep and be comforted. And on days when it seems like the very sun shines from my eyes, I can call them to celebrate and share joy. But on ordinary days, it’s hard to put into words what I want to share.
Because the truth is that I just want to share the day. With someone whose allegiance to me is only secondary to One.
I love my life – this dream I am living where I do work I love, have time to serve others, see these mountains dance with the gold of autumn every day. I love it. But it is lonely sometimes. As I know marriage to be, too
I know I can always reach out in prayer. There is comfort in that, but not all comfort. It is not the same to talk to the God I cannot audibly hear or physically see. It’s powerful, but it is not the same.
On days, like yesterday, I long for that one person who has agreed to be the one I call for no reason in particular. Who will answer. Who will listen. Who will share.
Last night, when I crossed over past Faber and into the mountain valley where I live, a sickle moon hung over the mountains just painted purple beneath a smoky pink sky. There was a balm in that. Not healing. Not deliverance. But balm for this wound. And sometimes, that is enough.
When do you feel most lonely?