About 10 months ago…
I was chatting with a colleague at an after-hours event, when he asked me how things were going. He was divorced, and I knew he was asking about my personal life.
“Ah, it’s all right,” I moaned. “There is light at the end of the tunnel.”
He looked at me and asked, “Have you ever been afraid you’d always be alone?”
“No,” I replied. “But thank you for introducing that suggestion into my impressionable mind.”
“I remember one night when I was home alone, shortly after I’d moved out . . . it suddenly dawned on me that I might be alone forever. It was a terrifying realization.”
Truthfully, this thought had never occurred to me. As I explained to my colleague, I have my children and my friends, and I always just assumed that life was going to be better once he was gone. I mean emotionally better, lighter. How could I possibly fear being alone when I was lonelier in my marriage than I can ever remember feeling before?
Sure, I had plenty of fears — I had been terrified of telling our children, our close-knit neighborhood and family members. Being alone wasn’t one of them…yet.
the life and loves of Alisa B 