The Day I Realized Just How Lonely I Really Am

Monica Garwood Facebook Twitter LinkedIn

Welcome to Ethels Tell All, where the writers behind The Ethel newsletter share their personal stories related to the joys and challenges of aging. Come back each Wednesday for the latest

piece, exclusively on AARP Members Edition.

I don’t think anyone actually enjoys filling out forms, but there’s one part I dread more than most: the emergency contact. I don’t have one, not really. After my divorce, I reverted to

using my mother, but she’s turning 80 this year, and I can’t imagine her making the hour-and-a-half drive for any emergency. My sister lives across the country, so I run into the same issue,

and my brother and I have been estranged for years. Other people list their partners, but I’ve long since given up dating. I’m happily single, but the end of my last serious relationship

was also the end of having a name to fill in that blank space.

I do not fit the profile of a lonely person. I’m a natural extrovert who will chat up strangers in line for an airport bathroom. I’m active in my community, the first to volunteer for

committees and events. I laugh easily and often and love to try new things. I don’t own a single cat.

But although I am completely comfortable and content being alone, I do still get lonely. Being a grownup with virtually no real-life social network can be incredibly isolating, and

incredibly overwhelming. A few years back, I started referring to myself as an “adult orphan” even though my mom is still living, because it seemed like one of the only terms that really

gets at how utterly untethered being a single adult can really feel.

In a world designed for couples and families, being a “one” can often make you feel like zero. You get left off a lot of invites, intentionally or not, because people don’t like a third

wheel. You spend holidays alone. You also develop a lot of self-reliance, because when the plumbing springs a leak at 3 a.m., you have no one to turn to and you have to figure it out.