I grew up the youngest in a family of five. I married and had a baby before I was 30. I couldn’t have more kids, but we were the Waltons in other ways: I lived next door to my in-laws and my parents moved to the next village when they retired. We were one big, happy, extended family. Yet there were times when the thought of being alone was intoxicating. Then I got divorced and my dad died suddenly just as Mum was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. For the next eight years, her life became my life. I couldn’t bear the thought of Mum being alone and she wasn’t, right to the very end.
Hurtling towards 55 with both parents gone and my only child now paying taxes, I decided to leave a life on repeat and move to the Jurassic Coast. I knew nobody there and work from home, so this really would be flying solo. “Is it a kind of gap year?” asked my puzzled ex, while friends’ reactions were universally monosyllabic: “Why?” Then came the L word. Not love but loneliness.
Undeterred, last spring I took a leap of faith and drove down the M3 to my new home, with towering cliffs, crashing waves and beautiful beaches. I had rented a place in a pretty village, near a town with a strong community. When the removal truck eventually pulled away after a long discussion about the best place to get fish and chips (I don’t know!) I closed the door.
For first time since my 20s, I was truly, madly, deeply alone. After unpacking endless boxes and wanting to familiarise myself with my new surroundings, I walked up and down the village, smiling at passersby. There weren’t many. I stared at some of the unpronounceable place names, unable to speak Dorset. When I returned home, there was no partner to shout hello or make tea, no parents to help put up curtains – nobody. Exhausted, I sat on the sofa nibbling the remaining biscuit uneaten by the removal men and remembered a letter my dad wrote as an 18-year-old able seaman in the second world war, on board his new ship in the far east: “I haven’t made any friends yet but at least I can’t lose any either.”
It wasn’t long before a succession of neighbours brought cake (so much cake) and a warm welcome. The kindness of strangers. I sat outside that first night and stared at the dark sky, wondering whether Mum and Dad really were up there trying to figure out what the hell I was doing.
My son arrived the next day and spent the weekend constructing my bed and downloading an app about tide times so I wouldn’t drown on coastal walks. He suggested maybe I should get a cat “like Dad”. I wasn’t sure whether this meant a cat who looked like his father or one to match the feline his dad had recently rescued. I let it go either way.
His goodbye hug said “It’ll be OK”. Then, as kids do whether they’re 30 or 13, he blurted out the latest news, about a job offer even further away and I waved him off, proud, but knowing it would be a while before I saw him again.
I display the symptoms of living alone: talking to myself, fragmented sleep and binge-watching box sets. What I hadn’t expected was how much I miss the everyday stuff, from conversations about Trump to being driven somewhere so I can have a drink or just gaze at the view. One of my friends recently cooked Sunday lunch for some of us solos because “who cooks Sunday lunch for one?” I can spot other aloners a mile off in the supermarket, basket in hand (trolleys are dead to us) weighing a single spud or calculating whether the dine-in-for-two offer will stretch to four meals for one. Please, can someone also think about a loner’s loaf so I don’t have to eat frozen slices of bread, which taste like lino?
What really surprised me was how the relationship with my son changed. Since our family unit shrank, I suspect he feels a greater sense of responsibility. He volunteered to come with me to a recent medical test and together in the waiting room, I had a flashback to a similar moment with my mum. On life’s minutiae, my only son may not be that keen after a long day at work to call about the benefits of installing a smart meter, but an unspoken shift has taken place. Paradoxically, I am now more conscious of backing off than asking for help. I do not want to become the archetypal burden.
The realpolitik of my new life is there’s no one around to take up the slack. Not only when I was ill with full-on flu and threw the out-of-date paracetamol miserably on the floor. It’s for the fun stuff too. Solo socialising can be exhausting. I miss being able to divert a question to a friend or fella while I take a breather. And after a hard day, sharing your moans down the phone to a mate is not the same as a big bear hug and clink of a glass half full. In an effort to control the heating bill, I dress as if for the slopes and add a snazzy bandana to keep my ears warm. Of course, I laugh at myself in the mirror but it’s my secret shame, no one shares the joke or a sneaky picture on Facebook.
And there’s the rub. At the end of another day, all the social media in the world is no substitute for a living, breathing human. Texting a smiley face to a friend, I realise how tech-dependent I’ve become. In this, I am not alone. We snatch time together over the internet, not in person. The rush of having to be somewhere and do something leads to denying what we really need – each other. Maybe loneliness is the new frontier to be crossed as an inevitable consequence of progress.
I think back to the years when I craved the calm of solitude. These days, I can get as hygge as the next person. A real fire, new book and rain against the window are good for the soul. But this temporary withdrawal is not to be confused as loneliness’s twin, they are very different creatures. Solitude is the antithesis of loneliness; it is comforting. Loneliness is like a silent scream in a world gone dark.
Some of my least lonely times were when I commuted into London. Amid cancelled trains and spiralling fares, I had my rail buddies. We saved seats, nudged each other awake and created a community. Desperate to put off returning to a marriage in name only, I was thrown a lifeline by my fellow travellers.
Moving to the countryside means I’ve swapped pollution for sea air and enough societies to rival any freshers’ fayre, but it has also bestowed unexpected star power. As the new girl, I’m in the spotlight with a deluge of questions about where I’ve come from and why I’m here. This is volunteer land where you are expected to pitch in and do your bit. It’s much harder to wear the urban cloak of invisibility when most people know your name or that you could maybe write the parish magazine. And anyway, at 55 I’m “the baby” still with much to learn about my new environment, which makes me feel part of something bigger. And that perhaps I have a brighter future after all.
So it’s not all doom and gloom. I can do what I want: whistle without the out-of-tune police silencing me, stretch across my super king size bed, free from snoring. I can be at the beach all weekend and watch endless Grey’s Anatomy. I like that the house is the same when I come home and no one judges whether I have too many cushions. I do not have to shave my legs regularly or clean the bath, having discovered my inner domestic slut. It’s liberating not to worry what a partner is thinking or feeling and how they’ll react if you say something they don’t like. I now know I really am much stronger than I thought, with a confidence I always lacked, despite my extrovert cover. Loneliness has helped me to accept myself that little bit more.
Friends and family come to stay but they naturally prefer long summer days to cold winter weekends, and sometimes all I can see when I’m out by myself is people out with other people. That’s usually when the silence overwhelms and I get together with a friend and let the feeling roll over me, because I know it will pass. After all, everyone gets lonely, whether you’re in a relationship or all at sea.
