Escaping the loneliness trap, particularly in our rural communities

I’ve resolved to let go of the notion that building a community and friendships should come effortlessly. By being intentional and facing our fears we can overcome the loneliness trap.

The intersection of peony season with my surgery brought endless time to smell and photograph my favorite flowers

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As some of you may already know - in May I took a few weeks off to have a preventative surgery to reduce my risk of dying from the same cancer that my mom had - ovarian cancer. While in the scheme of things it was a minor surgery - I was knocked out and needed a few weeks to recover. It was a tough few weeks. I came face to face with the realization of how much time I am spending alone out here, with one other human, my partner to depend on for all of my social and emotional needs. We are way up on this mountain in West Virginia - not an easy drive even to the grocery store - let alone to see friends. No easily accessible post-surgery walks to see other neighbors. At some point I was washing dishes alone, staring out the kitchen window at my breathtaking view and thinking - my life, this place could be so much more. How is it with billions of people on this planet I still spend so much time alone? How many of us are in the same boat - spending so much time alone?

Thankfully my sister had planned a trip out to visit and to help me recover - flying way across the country and leaving her young children with my Dad and his girlfriend, who generously offered them a fun packed week so my sister could get out to see me. Spending the week with my sister we got to zoom out of life here a bit and talk about it - how much more difficult the logistics of everyday life are - everything from recycling and trash pick-up to sourcing healthy food and making everything from scratch - doing the bare minimum to care for 20 acres of land. It fills your days and with that and the textile work I don’t find myself with extra energy to get creative about making friends, hosting dinners etc. But in the wake of my surgery, I resolved that this status quo of alone time or time spent with a single additional, introverted partner could not go on. So in the wake of my surgery, as I began to recover my strength I made a commitment - I am going to start really making an effort to bust out of the loneliness trap and make more of a community here for myself.

My sister and I in my well-loved kitchen

The very next week I shared my frustration and loneliness at our Community Stitch Night. And out came everyone else’s stories - the things they endured with only one exhausted partner to support them. The unbearable loneliness that has come to characterize our communities. How hard it is for people who were not born here to make friends - to break into the family clans. I shared how in the nearly 5 years we have lived here we have successfully invited people to dinner 3 times. I can count on one hand how many places I’ve been invited for dinner since we moved here.

One member of our stitch night shared that it wasn’t always this way - people did used to invite friends for dinner - but that stopped well before Covid. We speculated that perhaps it was yet another impact of the opioid epidemic because people became extremely cautious about sharing where they live with new friends when people would get their homes broken into by people looking for drugs and valuables. We don’t really know the answer but suffice it to say it is hard to make close friends and has only gotten harder since Covid.

In the days leading up to my surgery, these flowers bloomed intensely.

I also reflected on how much time I’ve put into my career - my textile work -seeing results there and somehow thinking that my social life - my friendships should come effortlessly. But they have not, and I find myself becoming more fearful and awkward the more time passes that I don’t put this time in. So last week I took action. First it was the Community Stitch Night loneliness confession, followed by serious brainstorming to get more group activities on the calendar, and then it was an Instagram post by one of my favorite West Virginia designers, Nellie Rose who shared that she was going to be at my favorite little getaway community - Fayetteville, WV for an art show. It was a far enough drive that I couldn’t go up just for the event. So I checked Airbnb on the off chance that I could find an affordable room in town at the height of the tourist season. And there it was - a 1910 Victorian with a series of cute, spacious, reasonably priced rooms for rent, walking distance from town. Sold.

I drove up Saturday. And my world began to open up. I met 6 potential new friends - a jackpot considering how slow I’ve been to meet people in the last several years.

Peonies in the rain don’t carry the same divine scent, but they look amazing

I had more conversations on how I am trying to build my community and friendships here. And I found more buddies to think through how to do that. More people craving parallel play - a fancy term for doing hobbies next to each other - just having the company of another human. Perhaps I am not alone in thinking that this stuff should just come naturally, that I don’t have to invest time and effort into building these relationships. But - if that was ever true - it is not true these days. We have got to get creative to invest time and energy into making new relationships.

But then this trip and my endeavor to make more friends was not all gravy. At 40 I am grappling with that extreme vulnerability of finding a person you want to be friends with and having no idea if they will text you back and follow through on making plans. It feels like dating again. It is not easy. A solo life is controllable - the loneliness is dependable - but it is not sustainable. It can even kill you as we keep hearing from the public health community.

So if you are with me - and you are in this weird post-Covid boat where you find you are still somehow spending too much time alone or in your family bubble - resolve to get creative, put yourself out there and make new friends. These relationships I’m convinced are the answer to everything. They are divine. And they require overcoming built up fears. But everything is possible on the other side of them.

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