31/08/2026
We’ve had a lovely bank holiday weekend. Kids in and out of the house, my son’s friends, my friends too. We picked damsons in the garden, built a den at the front of the house, had 2 movie nights with chocolate fountains, my son played golf, I got out & saw friends. It was full. It was genuinely lovely.
This evening, kids watching a film, I caught myself thinking how lonely I’ve felt this weekend. Then I actually looked back at the weekend we’d just had, and it had been full and busy with people. And the loneliness was still there underneath all of it.
I’ve spent most of the last twelve years living alone. And I’m aware that feeling lonely in a room full of people, in grief, is really normal, I talk about that a lot. But this has quietly been there for me too, just from living alone, separate from the grief itself.
Since lockdown life has been very busy and the last 2 years have come with particular challenges and their own trauma and loss.
It’s has only really been these last six weeks over the summer, I have intentionally made space to heal and put more quiet and stillness in, that things like this have started surfacing. I’m choosing to take that as a blessing, learning more about what I need, what I actually want, even though it still feels rubbish sitting in it.
This particular loneliness is different to the loneliness of missing my husband. I think there’s a mix of both running underneath everything, a loneliness that belongs to grief, and a loneliness that belongs to life, carried side by side.
I’m not chasing a relationship to fix this. I don’t want someone else’s presence to be the only thing standing between me and this feeling. There’s something in me that needs attention here.
Triggers are messages. They tell us something needs to shift, or something needs adding in. So this week, I’m going to journal on it, sit in the stillness with it, and let myself actually feel it rather than rushing to fix it.
A weekend full, and still, underneath it all, lonely. I’m going to practice what I teach, and allow that to be exactly what it is.