A Confession of Loneliness

"Peyton: Is it me? Am I the reason people always leave? Am I the reason all these things keep happening to me? Maybe I'm just destined to be alone.
Lucas: It's not you, and you're not alone. But eventually you're going to have to be.
Peyton: No, you're right. I can do it."
-Where Did You Sleep Last Night, One Tree Hill

Loneliness....

Loneliness is something I have lived. I’ve felt alone when I shut everyone else out while I gave into and then fought my eating disorder. I’ve felt alone when I moved to Michigan and found myself miles and miles away from my home. I’ve felt alone when I was in Oregon and fought another battle of abuse. I’ve felt alone when I moved back to Southern California and felt out of place. All these times I've felt alone was because I refused to let anyone else in. I felt alone because I put up a wall of pure steel and ice all around me. I dated guys and made great friends, and still felt like I had to protect myself.

Then my fiancé and I found each other again. It was like I had waited a lifetime to finally feel the love and trust and compassion that I feel now. It was like a warm flame that melted me from the inside out. It was like a warm relaxing bath that engulfed my soul and put me at ease. And it wasn’t that I felt all alone anymore, but for the first time it felt that I didn’t have to protect myself from someone. And I let him in.

And now, now I feel a different kind of loneliness. I don’t feel like I have to live this new life alone. I don’t necessarily feel out of place – and yet I do.

This loneliness sucks. I feel it whenever my fiancé goes to scoop up one of the boys. I feel it when we visit with family members on his side. I feel like I stick out. I feel like I belong in a Sesame Street segment of “Which one of these things is not like the others? Which of these doesn’t belong?” And it’s not that I don’t belong, I do. I know I do. But I still feel like I don’t. I don’t quite know how to explain this loneliness.

I’ve tried to talk about it to my fiancé. I tell him I feel like I stick out like a sore thumb. I feel like I don’t blend in. I feel like I’m the damn live-in nanny. I hate this feeling, and no matter what I’ve tried I can’t shake it. It’s kept me up late at night at times. And I truly know that yes, it takes time. But I still can’t help but wonder if I will ever feel like I fit in with this family.

I do all this reading that focuses on the children’s lives, how dismantled and traumatic and raw a divorce is for them. And it’s true. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. I’ve never experienced it, and no, I can never understand what it’s like to be a child of divorce. But I've seen it. I've been sensitive and aware to it.

I think I feel like I don’t fit in because I literally was not a part of making this family. I wasn’t here from the start. My life feels dismantled, torn apart and raw. I feel like I'm being forced to experience divorce (even though I know I had a choice in whether to get into this relationship or not). I guess it comes back to the whole "I thought I knew what I was getting into but I really had no idea" realization of every stepmom's experience I've read about.

It’s like when I was little and I had all the Care Bears in my collection – except for Love-a-Lot bear. My Grandma made me a Love-a-Lot. And she belonged, she completed the Care Bear family, but she stuck out. She stuck out in a special way, but just by looking at her you knew that she was not from the same line as the other Care Bears. That’s the best way that I can explain it, describe it and make sense of it.

I remind myself, daily, that life is rushing at me at a rapid pace right now. I remind myself that eventually it has to slow down. And that I’m not alone even though I feel like I am at times.