Summer Evenings Alone

Summer has just begun, we have only been back from our Disney vacation for 9 days, and the summer nights are already lonely....it is not even June yet.   Because it is summer, the kids are doing all kinds of fun things with their friends.  At the beginning of the day, I tell myself,"Tonight, we are going to all stay home together", then something comes up and it does not happen.  They need for it to be a typical summer. I am allowing them to do fun things with their friends,  go to their music rehearsals,  or swim at the pool every day.  Doing these normal summer activities are helping them. The last few days, there have been a few hours out of each evening that I have been alone.  The house feels big, I feel lonely, and I am missing my evening chat time with Michael.  As I stepped outside tonight to walk Brady alone, I felt the sadness and tears wanting to creep up on me and I did not want to go there. I wanted to keep my mood up tonight.   I had my cell phone with me so I called my sister in Boston.  I said I was feeling a "moment" coming on me and I was trying to stop it, so I called her.  I told her to talk to me about anything.  I did not want to talk about how I was doing because I knew I would have gone downhill fast.  We talked about summer plans the whole time I walked him and it got me through the moment.  When I got home, I was ready to eat dinner, alone.

 I have always enjoyed solitude.  I can sometimes be a borderline recluse.  I have always liked to exercise alone, drive alone,  or just be quiet and in my house alone.  I have never required much girl friend time or recreation time. Michael and I were very independent of other people and very dependent on each other.  Even in that, we had a strong, healthy independence within our marriage.  I have been able to get by with very little social outings or conversations with anyone besides my children or Michael.  I have been very content in my simple life.  The solitude is not the same now.  I know this will change again someday, but, right now, it does not feel like solitude.  To me, solitude has a positive connotation to it.  Solitude is something we strive to fit somewhere into our busy lifestyles.  It is something that recharges us, enlarges our minds, gives us time to catch our breath,  and even see things with a new perspective.  This has all seemed to have reversed on my lately.  It is not solitude, is now more like loneliness.  I need much more socializing than I have ever needed in my life.  I thank the Lord that I see that truth and that I have so many friends willing and able to make themselves available to me for all of the little visits that are required to help me make it to through the days.  I need between two to three hours out of the day to be true solitude.  Any time alone beyond that takes a lonely turn.  This is when I turn to loved ones to fill the void.  It might be a phone call, an email, a visit with a neighbor, or even a quick trip in the car to get coffee from Starbucks. All of these things work for me.  The last couple of nights have been different because they are the evening hours.  Day time is much different and easier to solve the situation.  At night, you typically want to unwind, maybe move in and out of some easy conversations, and just do things silently in and around people.  Those are all comforting acts.  I keep having to change and reinvent my evenings and what will work best for me.  It continues to evolve.  It is a continual process of trial and error.  I am learning more about myself in this process, more about my children, and the importance of balance.  I feel that I have always had balance in my life, for the most part....but now, the weights are all shifting and I am trying to figure out which area needs more and which areas need less.  Even in these seemingly lonely evenings, I am learning, stretching, and experiencing another kind of "new normal" for my summer nights.