About Loneliness

I walked ten thousand steps today. I hear it is good for me.

I woke up early and wrote something about maples, using the AI you set up for me. I do not know if it is any good. I planted one last week, next to the big oak where the grass never grew. The soil took it fine. I think it will be alright.

I called you after. You were busy. I knew you would be. I just wanted to tell someone.

Then I dialed Davids number. I do that sometimes. It has been six years. My fingers know it before my mind catches up. I hang up before it connects to whoever has the number now. I do not know why I keep doing it. I do not know why I cannot delete the contact.

Mark next door is in a home now. His daughter moved him last spring. The house sold to a young couple with a baby. They wave but we have not talked. I do not know their names.

I will go to the library again this afternoon. I walk there because the steps count and because Johns old house is on the way. The pines he planted have gotten bigger. I remember when they were saplings. I remember helping him dig the holes. His wife sent a card after he passed but I never heard from her again. I think she moved to be near her son. I could probably find out. I have not tried.

There will not be anyone I know at the library. There usually is not. I go anyway. The walk is good for me. The building is air-conditioned. Sometimes a stranger says hello.

You are going to read this and wonder if I am unhappy. I do not know how to answer that. I am not unhappy. I am just alone in a way I did not expect.

Should I have made more friends? Stayed in touch with the ones I had? Hard to say. It did not feel urgent fifteen years ago. There was always your mother to come home to. There was always someone to tell about the maple, the walk, the thing I read.

May her soul rest in peace.

Here is what I want you to know: the loneliness does not announce itself. It accumulates. One friend moves. One friend dies. One friend just stops and you stop and no one says anything. You wake up one day and realize the phone does not ring anymore and you cannot point to when it changed.

The people you have now feel permanent. They are not. I do not say this to frighten you. I say it because I thought the same thing.

Hold them closer. Not because you should appreciate them more. You already do. But because the room empties slowly and by the time you notice, some of them are gone.

I am going to walk to the library now. The pines will be there. The young couple might wave. The steps will count toward the ten thousand.

It is a good life. I want you to know that too. It is just quieter than I thought it would be.