Lonely Won't Leave Me Alone

The worst part of this new transition from a wife and a houseful of kids to a crummy apartment and no one to come home to, is the solitude, the loneliness. At times it's almost soul crushing, the silence swallows you, and then it just makes it easy to fall into a depression and a funk.

I've tried to fill the silence and the hole with video games, junk food, other baser pursuits, but I've realized that it's not going anywhere, so I guess I need to learn to enjoy my own company. That's a process. I would love a friend to "date" but that hasn't happened. Lord knows I'm too broken to be in any serious relationship, but I miss the company of someone of the opposite sex, just to talk to, be close to. Maybe I shouldn't want that right now and I should focus my energy purely on refining, rebuilding, myself.

It's hard to go from constant companion, to solitude though. Like, real hard. I can't have that/be that with Traci anymore and that just causes damage to whatever strands still connect us, which I hate.

I feel unlovable, and so utterly rejected, at times. That's hard, because I know somewhere out there is someone looking for everything I am, everything I can bring to the table. But the timing is off.

It's hard work learning to love yourself. Especially if you're a persnickety, perfectionist, who tends to overestimate your own flaws. Add in the things that you never considered flaws that your ex says are just impossible to live with/accept and it becomes that much more difficult.

I've had a lot of help getting to this stretch of road where I finally feel like I can slowly take honest looks at these things, stripped down to the bare bones. Decide which are flaws, which can I improve, which are just ingrained character traits, and which I like, regardless of the flaw, and love and accept those, and expect any future "friend" to just accept them as well.

Meanwhile, I'm starting to almost like the quiet, if nothing else, I'm writing. Trying to read more, I picked up The Alchemist the other day. I've heard it's a pretty good read about self discovery and that journey.

Plus I swiped some of the Tom Clancy books I didn't have yet, so time to read, write, embrace myself. Love myself, love others, be happy in my circumstances and let the good find me.

I even watched A Few Good Men last night without someone complaining about it...to be fair, it's irresistible to me if I know it's on... I can't not watch...

Lonely won't leave me alone, but I can choose to be happy/ok, with it.

"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood..."

Time to pick a road and get moving. Standing still ain't doing no one any good.