One of my favorite podcasts is This American Life, and on July 17th they aired a show called How to be Alone. And I can’t get it out of my head. They talk about isolated lives, lives of astronauts and normal humans on earth, and the thing I can’t stop thinking about is this statement from a single woman named Danielle Evans.
It is possible to feel stuck with your choices, even without wishing you’d made any differently.
There’s such an insane bent towards comparison in our humanity, and an underlying assumption that everyone else has it better, even as we’re navigating a global pandemic and recession and life-altering, world-transforming events. It seems all I hear and see across the socials is moms needing their kids out of the house or married folks sick of their spouses, or single people desperate for any kind of human connection, all extremely valid feelings, and then in the comments someone else desperate for the opposite, accusing others of not being grateful enough and pointing out things that are obvious and desperately unhelpful like, it was your choice to have kids/be single/get married, and now you’re complaining about it? There are definitely good things that have come from this year, but overall it’s been more bad news than good, and we truly must stop with comparing shipwrecks; in the end, every shipwreck ends badly.
It is possible to feel stuck with your choices, even without wishing you’d made any differently.
I love the permission that this phrase grants to my anxious and lonely heart; that it’s okay for me to feel lonely and hurt even though I’ve set up my life the way that I have. I could have made different life choices that would have left me feeling something other than isolation during lockdown…. But that doesn’t mean it would have been any better.
This morning as I sip my coffee and think about going back to my real non-vacation life in a few days, I started out by listing the things that make life enjoyable; simple things like hanging out with friends, exploring new places, reading a good book while floating in the pool, etc. And instead of wishing I had someone else’s life, I’m committed to finding and living and loving every morsel of joy I can as my own journey continues to unfold.
Let us begin 