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i just want to remind you that you’re not alone

Blog

Living a life of hope & wholeness and sometimes writing about it. 

 

i just want to remind you that you’re not alone

Elizabeth Moore

I sat alone on my patio.

Just me and a borrowed, wooden folding chair (the only piece of furniture on this 5x12 foot concrete slab). I was two stories high, overlooking a parking lot, an aluminum carport, four lanes of traffic, and a humid, summer sunset. It was there that I realized, I'm not alone.

It sounds creepy, but it's not. It's actually quite comforting. I guess the thought first dawned on me a few days earlier, when I was having one of those chats with my mom.

I slumped in a chair by my apartment swimming pool. My body had slid so far down the chair that my shoulder blades were situated somewhere in the middle of the chair back. My feet were propped on the table in front of me. The air was still and hot, but not unbearable in the evening shade. I concentrated on breathing in and out because I felt like I was going to faint--my annoying "norm" these days. Hello, anxiety disorder.

I held the phone to my ear and tried to appear perfectly composed & essentially in control of my life. When I talk to my mom, I’m either completely fine or completely melting down.

“I just don’t want this to be another lonely summer,” I groaned. “That’s what last summer was and I really don’t want to do that again.”

Last summer, I spent most nights sitting on a similar patio chair, eating chicken & veggies out of a bowl, reading books, writing, waving to people walking their dogs, or seeing kids riding their bikes around the tennis courts.

I’d tell myself, “This is nice. Isn't it nice? To have time & space to eat in peace, read for fun, write, be single & free of obligations?" But, if I'm honest, I also felt a little forgotten about, my lone fork clinking against my bowl night after night. I wanted another human with me. Someone to exist there too.

This summer, my body remembers the heat and the evening crickets and the loneliness of last summer, and I’m not letting that happen again.

I told all of this to my mom over the phone, fighting back tears of frustration and weariness.

Again: “I don’t want this to be another lonely summer.”

Of course now, one year later, I have way more friends. Ellie, Lindsey, & Lexus live in the apartment directly across from mine. Mallory is in the same building. Brianna & Taylor are one building over. The number of friends I can text and ask to come over or hang out are in the double digits. I’m thankful for the tremendous growth that’s happened in a year. But even two years don't make relationships feel perfectly safe & secure yet. And that’s okay I think. I’m learning that building relationships as an adult is a long, slow, intentional process. 

I babbled on the phone with my mom for a while longer, but before hanging up, my mom paused to tell me something.

“I just want to remind you that you’re not alone.”

I sighed, and felt the faintest inkling of a breeze as I straightened up in my chair.

“I know, Mom, I know,” I said. But I wasn’t annoyed. I wasn’t rolling my eyes. I heard her. And I tucked those three words away somewhere safe.

“You’re not alone.”

Emmanuel, God with us.

So on nights when it's 5:30pm and I have no plans, I'm not anxious. I'm not insecure (usually). If anxiety threatens to rear it's ugly head, I know what to do. It will pass. Even if this summer is just me and a salad and a wooden folding chair, then I'm so good with that.

Because I know that I'm not alone. I enjoy being by myself because I know I’m not missing out on anything. I am in the company of the One who gives me life and joy and everything. So I breathe deeply and easily and completely because tonight, all alone, I am not alone. I live by myself, and I am satisfied.