I absolutely sobbed all the way through reading Rey, Omar, Martha, Reginald, and Izzy's stories. But am so grateful to have read them as well as the ones last week and to feel a little less alone in the world, a little less lonely in this world of isolation and loneliness. Thank you all. And thank you Anne for this newsletter. I feel so much grief, loneliness, and trauma in the world right now and I don't know what to do about it, but am grateful to everyone who shared their stories. Thank you again from this solo-pandemic-er. (And a particular thank you to the grad students! The relentless "business as usual" attitude of academia has felt very dehumanizing for me!)
Reginald, your story broke my heart. You brought such tenderness to taking care of your husband, that I cannot believe you have nothing to offer to a future partner, friends old and new, and chosen family. I hope you won't keep that beautiful empathy and care locked away for the next 25 years, but find ways to share it, and receive it in return.
I live in a cohousing community and Martha's description rang so true. I live with my husband and child, but many of our neighbors are women in their 70s and 80s who live alone -- alone in their apartments, but with some ability to socialize thanks to the coho community. In our case, there were outdoor meals all summer where people brought their own food but could eat on the lawn at patio tables carefully distanced. Since weather made outdoor meals more difficult, people do at least still have the opportunity to stand outside and chat for as long as they can stand the cold, and one empty space in our partially open-air garage has been turned into a place people can socialize if they want -- people painted a mural on the wall and put a patio table and chairs there. It's still cold but there's a roof and partial shelter from the wind.
At Halloween, our kids trick or treated around the grounds of the building, with our mostly elderly neighbors creating outdoor stations, many of them in costume or having brought their own decorations. It seems like watching the kids play is a very popular diversion and the older people are often so happy to have a chance to be involved with them somehow.
Like Emma, I cried my way through these—particularly Reginald's story. I grew up hating to cry, but I naturally cry the way an acquaintance describes it: "like breathing." I'm learning to let that happen. And it feels right to just let it go for a second. Certainly it's better than holding on like you're going to get some kind of medal for keeping your emotions all fenced in. Emotions are wild things, products of us wild humans. These stories are full of deep and authentic emotion, and I for one need to feel them. "We are nothing without everyone," as Izzy put it.
The folks who shared their stories here are so beautiful, so vulnerable, so strong. If any of you are reading the comments, please accept my thanks for your story, and my blessing: may this be the year that what you need finds you, and may you recognize it, and may you allow it into your heart. <3
thank you for sharing these stories. I was committed to a solo lifestyle prior to the pandemic and was on the cusp of re-evaluating it to open my circle more right before everything shut down. in some ways, I felt prepared, but I was already missing more in-person connections by the time I had to limit them even more. it's been really difficult not having a choice in the matter because I have to be one of the most cautious among my friends and have no family here to rely on.
Thank you for sharing these stories. I am finally getting around to joining the virtual community of subscribers here, as I’ve been a lurker for some time now.
I have lived by myself in a studio apartment for the past year. I went back to finish my undergraduate degree at 28, and felt as if I had faced all manners of obstacles but the pandemic simply amplified all of them. I’m semi-estranged from my family, due to differences on both sides. I recently came out. I do still converse respectfully with my family, but the fact is I’d have moved on from this college town already if it weren’t for the pandemic.
After the past year, I am not the same person at all. I feel like a butterfly in the sense that I was mashed up into bits and reassembled as, well, something not all that badly formed. I went through a Title IX process for six months, from the very beginning of the pandemic all the way up through August, at the University of Michigan.
I felt as if I had to choose between professional silence and feeling my mental health constricted as if by a snake. It turns out that I have done a bit of both for the past year. I don’t know when I will date again, but not anytime soon, despite how *suddenly* I felt a maternal instinct for the first time and am... yearning to get to a place in my life here I can possibly adopt? Suffice it to say, I am far from such a place.
With that said, I wonder constantly: What if I hadn’t gone back to school at the beginning of 2019? What if I still lived in Montana? What if... I hadn’t had a studio apartment to myself, and lived with other people? What if I were an extrovert—would I have snagged a new job more easily then? Why now? How can I turn off my need to be social, which only just turned itself back on after ten months of nearly complete and total isolation plus toxic stressors?
The questions don’t stop coming. All of them are as pointless as my feelings are valid. In the meantime, something someone said in one of the stories really resonated with me: There is no ‘control person’ to check my overblown thoughts. That, for me, is by far the most difficult part of being so alone.
I appreciated these stories so much, thank you for publishing them. I've been living alone for most of the past year and it means the world to me to have my experience reflected.
I've been struggling especially in the past few weeks because I was unable to travel home for Christmas at the last minute. I'm in the UK where they brought in travel restrictions. It's hard living through these short, grey lonely days with the lockdown stretching ahead.
I got back in touch with an old fling who lives alone, and I went to stay with him this week (this is allowed under current rules as a "support bubble"). He's a wheelchair user, so he's had the experience of a solo lockdown as a disabled person. It really helped to spend some time there.
I'm dreaming about housing coops now. I wonder if I'll ever be the type of person who can be relaxed and natural and social enough to live like that.
I live with three other people so I'm not solo but still about half the time I can't remember if I have washed my hair or not. I kept comparing it to Two Weeks' Notice (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W59U7VWHZ1Y) but the blurring of time description here is so excellent - thank you for the stories!
I've been reading your work for quite a long time but this one really resonates with me. Recently I've been listening to "Vox Conversations", previously "The Ezra Klein Show" where he spoke with US surgeon general Vivek Murthy on the loneliness epidemic. That show was profound in talking about the way loneliness affects the body and the mind. It talks about how much people report to feeling lonely and sometimes even when they are surrounded by individuals. Even right now, I live alone and I have to be honest, at times, the feelings of loneliness comes in waves. It's like my body telling me something isn't right and that human connection and companionship is just as important as the other things necessary to support human life. I can also imagine that in the years to come a lot of research will point to the second order effects in the rise of remote work and online shopping. A plethora of missed connections and a lack of deep intimate relationships.
I absolutely sobbed all the way through reading Rey, Omar, Martha, Reginald, and Izzy's stories. But am so grateful to have read them as well as the ones last week and to feel a little less alone in the world, a little less lonely in this world of isolation and loneliness. Thank you all. And thank you Anne for this newsletter. I feel so much grief, loneliness, and trauma in the world right now and I don't know what to do about it, but am grateful to everyone who shared their stories. Thank you again from this solo-pandemic-er. (And a particular thank you to the grad students! The relentless "business as usual" attitude of academia has felt very dehumanizing for me!)
Reginald, your story broke my heart. You brought such tenderness to taking care of your husband, that I cannot believe you have nothing to offer to a future partner, friends old and new, and chosen family. I hope you won't keep that beautiful empathy and care locked away for the next 25 years, but find ways to share it, and receive it in return.
I live in a cohousing community and Martha's description rang so true. I live with my husband and child, but many of our neighbors are women in their 70s and 80s who live alone -- alone in their apartments, but with some ability to socialize thanks to the coho community. In our case, there were outdoor meals all summer where people brought their own food but could eat on the lawn at patio tables carefully distanced. Since weather made outdoor meals more difficult, people do at least still have the opportunity to stand outside and chat for as long as they can stand the cold, and one empty space in our partially open-air garage has been turned into a place people can socialize if they want -- people painted a mural on the wall and put a patio table and chairs there. It's still cold but there's a roof and partial shelter from the wind.
At Halloween, our kids trick or treated around the grounds of the building, with our mostly elderly neighbors creating outdoor stations, many of them in costume or having brought their own decorations. It seems like watching the kids play is a very popular diversion and the older people are often so happy to have a chance to be involved with them somehow.
Like Emma, I cried my way through these—particularly Reginald's story. I grew up hating to cry, but I naturally cry the way an acquaintance describes it: "like breathing." I'm learning to let that happen. And it feels right to just let it go for a second. Certainly it's better than holding on like you're going to get some kind of medal for keeping your emotions all fenced in. Emotions are wild things, products of us wild humans. These stories are full of deep and authentic emotion, and I for one need to feel them. "We are nothing without everyone," as Izzy put it.
The folks who shared their stories here are so beautiful, so vulnerable, so strong. If any of you are reading the comments, please accept my thanks for your story, and my blessing: may this be the year that what you need finds you, and may you recognize it, and may you allow it into your heart. <3
thank you for sharing these stories. I was committed to a solo lifestyle prior to the pandemic and was on the cusp of re-evaluating it to open my circle more right before everything shut down. in some ways, I felt prepared, but I was already missing more in-person connections by the time I had to limit them even more. it's been really difficult not having a choice in the matter because I have to be one of the most cautious among my friends and have no family here to rely on.
Thank you for sharing these stories. I am finally getting around to joining the virtual community of subscribers here, as I’ve been a lurker for some time now.
I have lived by myself in a studio apartment for the past year. I went back to finish my undergraduate degree at 28, and felt as if I had faced all manners of obstacles but the pandemic simply amplified all of them. I’m semi-estranged from my family, due to differences on both sides. I recently came out. I do still converse respectfully with my family, but the fact is I’d have moved on from this college town already if it weren’t for the pandemic.
After the past year, I am not the same person at all. I feel like a butterfly in the sense that I was mashed up into bits and reassembled as, well, something not all that badly formed. I went through a Title IX process for six months, from the very beginning of the pandemic all the way up through August, at the University of Michigan.
I felt as if I had to choose between professional silence and feeling my mental health constricted as if by a snake. It turns out that I have done a bit of both for the past year. I don’t know when I will date again, but not anytime soon, despite how *suddenly* I felt a maternal instinct for the first time and am... yearning to get to a place in my life here I can possibly adopt? Suffice it to say, I am far from such a place.
With that said, I wonder constantly: What if I hadn’t gone back to school at the beginning of 2019? What if I still lived in Montana? What if... I hadn’t had a studio apartment to myself, and lived with other people? What if I were an extrovert—would I have snagged a new job more easily then? Why now? How can I turn off my need to be social, which only just turned itself back on after ten months of nearly complete and total isolation plus toxic stressors?
The questions don’t stop coming. All of them are as pointless as my feelings are valid. In the meantime, something someone said in one of the stories really resonated with me: There is no ‘control person’ to check my overblown thoughts. That, for me, is by far the most difficult part of being so alone.
I appreciated these stories so much, thank you for publishing them. I've been living alone for most of the past year and it means the world to me to have my experience reflected.
I've been struggling especially in the past few weeks because I was unable to travel home for Christmas at the last minute. I'm in the UK where they brought in travel restrictions. It's hard living through these short, grey lonely days with the lockdown stretching ahead.
I got back in touch with an old fling who lives alone, and I went to stay with him this week (this is allowed under current rules as a "support bubble"). He's a wheelchair user, so he's had the experience of a solo lockdown as a disabled person. It really helped to spend some time there.
I'm dreaming about housing coops now. I wonder if I'll ever be the type of person who can be relaxed and natural and social enough to live like that.
I live with three other people so I'm not solo but still about half the time I can't remember if I have washed my hair or not. I kept comparing it to Two Weeks' Notice (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W59U7VWHZ1Y) but the blurring of time description here is so excellent - thank you for the stories!
I've been reading your work for quite a long time but this one really resonates with me. Recently I've been listening to "Vox Conversations", previously "The Ezra Klein Show" where he spoke with US surgeon general Vivek Murthy on the loneliness epidemic. That show was profound in talking about the way loneliness affects the body and the mind. It talks about how much people report to feeling lonely and sometimes even when they are surrounded by individuals. Even right now, I live alone and I have to be honest, at times, the feelings of loneliness comes in waves. It's like my body telling me something isn't right and that human connection and companionship is just as important as the other things necessary to support human life. I can also imagine that in the years to come a lot of research will point to the second order effects in the rise of remote work and online shopping. A plethora of missed connections and a lack of deep intimate relationships.