Recently I’ve been struggling with feeling lonely. I feel guilty for having these feelings, I have a great partner, my dog, family and amazing friends. I’m very lucky but I still get lonely sometimes.
The more I’ve thought about it I’ve come to realise I live quite a solitary life. I work full time from home which most of the time I enjoy but seeing co-workers over Teams is not the same as in person. There’s no coffee chat or in person meetings and I live too far away to join the weekly socials.
My partner works night shifts, four days out of eight he’s gone for thirteen hour. When his shifts fall on weekends we don’t get a huge amount of time together. I’m grateful and love the time we do have but sometimes the evenings can get a bit lonely.
The strangest thing about it all was that I’ve been so scared to admit I’m lonely. There’s nothing wrong with feeling this way but in my mind its taboo. I felt guilty when I have so many great people in my life but I don’t always get to see those people and sometimes you can have hundreds of people around you but still feel lonely.
I’ve pushed myself to be more sociable and have really come out of my comfort zone and joined a weekly netball group. I’m rubbish and my stamina is terrible but the team is lovely and it gives me the comradery that I miss out on at work. I made myself even more uncomfortable and spoke to my partner about how I was feeling. It surprised me that he understood where I was coming from and justified my feelings. It was okay, it is okay to feel lonely sometimes and it’s definitely okay to talk about it.
If you’re really struggling and need to talk to someone you can chat to the Samaritans
Attempting To Wander 
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