Lonely

Grocery Store Blues

/ Gardy Loo Pismire / Leave a comment

Almost every morning I arise and recite some positive affirmations which I find brings positive thinking to the forefront and negative thinking into the further recesses of my mind. Unfortunately, I have neglected to do so for the past several days and it all caught up to me today in the grocery store.

Since I left my home and family I find that the hardest thing is for me to do is to go to the food store. Frankly, it is the loneliest place on the planet and I find this is where these life changes that I am facing knock me flat and kick the shit out of me.

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I used to like to go shopping. When you have a family as big as mine and cook just about every night; the grocery store is a place of endless ideas. It is a positive place that you can go to show your appreciation to your spouse and your love for everyone in the house by getting foods they enjoy and then cooking them and preparing them with love in your heart.

Since I have been single I have found the grocery store to be my own personal nightmare. Sure I get to pick what I ALONE WANT TO EAT but there is a true emptiness in doing so. I really have no desire to cook a fancy meal for me, myself, and I; so my shopping cart looks barren and desolate like the basket of someone getting over the flu.  Few things in it and none of them very exciting or wholesome. Lots of healthy frozen dinners, milk, yogurt, lettuce, carrots and that is about it.

Which is why I became shaken while walking the aisles today. I found that I had a very strong impulse to leave the cart sitting in the meat section and run out the doors. I have never had this happen to me before and it felt disconcerting. At took everything within me to stay and continue what I had come in for. It wasn’t a panic I was feeling. Just an all encompassing sadness. All I could think of as I cruised around was the laughter around the dinner table that I so desperately miss along with the appreciation I felt for a job well done. And all of this exists no more in this life that I am creating. It took everything I had in me not to break down in tears in aisle 13 (coffee) aisle 8 (school lunch snacks) and the produce aisle where golden apples once beckoned like the sun. My eyes were so thick with water that when I opened the freezer door I misjudged and slammed it hard into my forehead almost knocking myself out. WHAP!!!!! Just like something out of an I LOVE LUCY episode.

Some sweet teenage boy looked at me and said, “Hey, lady are you okay?”

“NO, NO IAM NOT.  I AM NOT OKAY. I AM NOT OKAY WITH HOW THIS ALL TURNED OUT. DAMN IT!!!

I am feeling:

Sad

Scared

Weary

Lonely

Vulnerable

Excited at times

And pretty much feeling worthless and unsure of myself…like walking the plank over an ocean full of thrashing sharks waiting to nibble at my bones.

I know it will get better. I know that someday I will be creating new memories of dinners with new friends and neighbors which will make perusing the aisles fun again. But for now the grocery store is the loneliest place on the planet and it is a place I just don’t want to visit anymore. It holds too many good memories and its shelves are stocked with expired items that are not mine to put into my cart. I can no longer taste the flavors of life at the dinner table anymore only the cardboard wrapping that protects what is inside.

OIP

 

Distance

/ Gardy Loo Pismire / 2 Comments

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I thought things were so much better between us but it feels like we are headed downhill once again. The distance between us has re-appeared and it makes us wary, circling one another, both waiting for the other to make the first strike.

The distance between us varies. Right now it feels like a ship off course from its intended destination. Off course because a storm is tossing it about in rough deep seas and as I look out of the window all I can see is gray skies and rolling waves the size of skyscrapers. And the smell sticks to you like wet, moldy grass. But it is the smell of fear that fills the room. Fear of sinking and fear of knowing you can never swim hard enough or fast enough to plant your feet firmly on the ground.

Sometimes I associate this distance with my GGG Grandparent immigrants. That last kiss, that last hug and that last wave knowing that all of it would be the last of everything and everybody you knew and that you would never see those who were left behind again. It feels conflicted…excited at a new chance, scared about what the unknowns were before you, and sad for all you were leaving behind. Sometimes our distance feels deeper than this sort of distance.

Often the distance between us feels like we are across from one another, standing in a sunny meadow. I reach for you and I find I am stuck in concrete and that I cannot move. Sometimes you see me and make your way towards me. Other times you turn your back and walk away.  It feels confusing and leaves a terrible taste in my mouth like dry burnt toast.

And sometimes this distance feels like we are just feet away from each other on a bridge but we both fail to take off our blindfolds so we can see that the other is right in front of us. This is even harder…so close…yet so far apart.

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Homesick

/ Gardy Loo Pismire / 3 Comments

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At 10:00 p.m. the first night I dropped her off at camp I received the call I had been dreading.

“I’m homesick,” sob, sobbing harder, and then louder.

“My roommates didn’t show up.” SOB, tears falling so hard and fast as they hit the phone it sounded like rain hitting the roof.

“You don’t have roommates?”

“Yes, I convinced two other girls to join me.”

“I hate it here!” WAAAAHHHHHHHHH

“Don’t you like the pool?”

“No, its horrible!” Sniff, sniff, sniff

“Are you learning any new skills?”

“N-o, I h-a-te it h-e-r-e” hicup, hicup, hyperventilate.

“Are you wanting me to pick you up?”

“Yes, come immediately!!!!”

“Honey, by the time I would get there it would be 3 a.m. and I just drove home from their today. I can’t do that and I won’t do that!”

WAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH

And the longer we talked the worse it got until I finally realized I was in a no-win situation and she would keep this up until Sunday, the battery power on her phone died, or at the very least until the sun rose.

In exasperation I said to my littlest

“Honey, I have to go, so put on your big girl panties and tough it out. Here’s the thing, you have the ability to choose what this weekend will be for you. You can choose to be miserable or you can choose to be happy, to have a great time, learn lots and create a bunch of memories. It’s your choice. Personally, I would choose happy because that is the only REAL choice you have if you want to have a good life. Start practicing making good choices.”

And then I hung up the phone before it got wet as the  salty drops started to splatter around me.

The Lonely Study…I Have No Idea How Many Days I Have to Fix This Nor Do I Care

/ Gardy Loo Pismire / 3 Comments

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  • This may be a boring post for some of you but I thought it was amazing in its implications

Recently a new research paper came out that was absolutely fascinating to me. Psychologists at the University of Chicago did a study on people who were labeled “lonely” based on a specific set of scientific measurements/criteria. The study determined that people who are lonely have brains that operate differently from those not considered to be lonely. In fact, the electrical impulses of the brains of lonely people were faster and more severe when shown negative social cues.  Researchers interpret this to mean that lonely people are guarding, both consciously and subconsciously, against social threats. This encourages the brain to be hypervigilant against perceived threatening social situations as well as go into a type of self-preservation mode. This can then often lead to social situations in which the lonely person interprets the actions of others incorrectly.

Fascinating…right!?

So what does this mean, I wondered, for persons in marriages that are breaking down as well as individuals with autism or other social anxiety issues?

I have no idea and the study didn’t examine these issues but I wish they would.

In the case of the married couple usually by the time you reach the divorce stage both parties are lonely because things are not going well and they are no longer each other’s best friend. In fact, the therapist we are going to said that we no longer have a strong friendship. (That is a statement for another post at another time) So does this mean that as our relationship deteriorated and as our friendship with one another decreased that we begin to interpret that actions of each other incorrectly leading to further disintegration? And does it mean that in exchanges with one another we are primed to guard against our spouse once again leading to a greater marital discord and demise?

Same with individuals on the autism spectrum. As they already have issues reading social cues and are often left out and lonely does this mean that their ability to read social cues diminishes even further the lonelier they become? Could this explain why children on the spectrum tend to become more rigid and less outgoing as they age?

If all this does indeed apply to both marital and spectrum issues then one of the questions that needs to be asked is at what point in the relationship does this inaccurate interpretation begin? Is it after the first disappointment or after the 131st? And what are the preliminary warning signs that signal to a person that their loneliness is having detrimental effects on themselves and those around them?

Yep, I’m a science geek and love this kind of stuff

For more information on this interesting study visit the radio program Here & Now

http://hereandnow.wbur.org/2015/09/22/lonely-social