Pod of One
They say that “one is the loneliest number”. Live in a “pod of one” for a year and a half during a worldwide pandemic, and you’ll know that’s true.
I’ve been living in a pod of one since the end of March 2020. At first I was okay with it. I’m an introvert with social anxiety. I don’t like being around a lot of people normally. With everything shut down, I didn’t have to come up with excuses as to why I didn’t want to leave my house. Everyone was staying home.
But most people have at least one other person (be it an adult or a child) that lives with them … or they have at least one pet. I have nothing. It’s just me in my pod.
And no one was really checking in on me, at least not regularly or in-depth. My Mom was, but she’s legally obligated to. LOL
Even before the pandemic started, I felt like I was a “bother” when I reached out to people.
Wanna go out for supper?
Wanna go shopping?
Wanna save me from myself? 🤪
I felt like I was always the one asking them to do something. They only agreed because they felt sorry for me, right? 🤔
So I didn’t really reach out to anyone during the pandemic. I did text the person who I consider to be my best friend a few times at the outset to touch base and make sure that she was alright. When she asked back how I was doing, I just said “fine” or “at least I’m still alive”. In other words, I deflected because I figured she wouldn’t want to know that I was falling apart.
Now that everything is opening back up, I’m feeling even more lonely. I’m seeing people out and about … mask or no mask. I’m watching stupid reality tv where groups of friends are going on trips to catch up after not seeing each other for more than a year. What am I doing? Sitting at home — alone — watching stupid reality tv shows. 🤦🏼♀️
I want to reach out. I WANT to catch up. But I feel like I’m forcing people to hang out with me because they feel sorry for me.
I want people to WANT to hang out with me. I want them to reach out to me … to initiate things.
I also want people to understand if I’m too overwhelmed rejoining society to actually do something out in public. I might only want to hang out on my porch. I might not be all that talkative (but then again, have I ever been?).
I’ve been a loner for most of my life. That’s why I don’t have many friends. I feel like I’ve been a shitty friend to those few people who have considered me a friend at any point in the past. There’s another reason I don’t reach out.
I’m better off keeping to myself. But that’s lonely. And thus is the circle of my life.
Side Note: I wasn’t going to post this. I was just going to type it up to get it out of my brain in the hopes that my brain would leave me alone — at least for a little bit. But my mental health isn’t going to get any better if I keep bottling this shit up. This is my reality after all. So I decided to click the “Publish” button to put this out there for the whole world to see. I disabled comments so no one could respond (not that anyone would anyway). I’m on the fence about posting this to Facebook or Twitter. But if I don’t, no one will probably ever read this. I haven’t posted anything in like 2 years (burnout & depression doesn’t make one want to sit in front of the computer and do anything, let alone write blog posts), and I never really had much traffic around here. Do I really want people to know how messed up I really am? Then again, they probably already know (especially if they’ve seen some of my posts on Twitter).