I've been finding a lot of comfort lately in ASMRtists on YouTube. It's soothing to my anxiety and sometimes helps me sleep. A few of my favorites occasionally do pick your pile tarot readings. Recently, one of them hit me over the head with the pile I picked. She talked about yearning for how things have been in the past and the need to find comfort with aloneness.
The straight up truth is I have always had conflict with aloneness.
Don't get me wrong, I love living on my own. I am a very independent person. I like being the only person that determines my schedule. When I eat, when I sleep, when the dogs go out, what I do with my free time, how often I clean. Any time I have lived with anyone in the past, I have never been comfortable and I always felt like the space was never actually mine and that the other people judged my habits, judged my eating, judged my dogs for barking or being too hairy, didn't clean or eat or function in ways that felt compatible with my own, made me feel unwelcome or like a burden. I end up spending a lot of time hiding in my room so I'm not in the way. A lot of that is probably my own asshole brain telling me mean things that aren't true but it's still how I felt.
However, on the other end of the swinging pendulum is a very deep fear that I will die alone. I mean, obviously I know that I will have friends and people that care about me, but I have always wanted a family of my own. A partner that loves me, is involved, supports my dreams, and wants to come along when it's time for fun. Children, I've always desperately wanted to be a mother. But the closer I get to 40, the more I wonder if I will ever get those things or if I will ever have is my career and my dogs.
This pandemic has been doing a hell of a number on this particular fear of mine. I have spent so much time alone and it feels like it will never end. It's really hard to see friends that have partners they get to see every day, families they get to share their lives with, people who have made an effort to have a quarantine bubble with the people they love. It is hard not to take it personally when it feels like no one wants you to be part of their bubble. And logically, yes, I know that the people I love are probably just being smart, being safe, trying to protect me, trying to protect themselves. But a good friend reminded me lately that logic has nothing to do with emotions. And emotionally I feel so abandoned. The holidays are coming and I'd really rather hibernate and pretend they're not happening because facing them this way is just so very painful and it is really hard to believe there is any hope at the end of this very long, very dark tunnel.
No, I'm not sure I will ever find comfort in aloneness.
