We write for different reasons. To express ourselves. To share our thoughts, our delights, our emotions. To reach out to others who are like-minded. To seek friendship. To satisfy a need within ourselves.
I might add to combat loneliness. Living in a very rural area with few neighbours can be very isolating. I found it particularly so when my children were small. Once they went to school, they were picked up by the school taxi as we lived more than 3 miles from the school and so I didn't even get the chat at the school gates. Friends I had made when they were at Mother and Toddler group moved away. A dear friend moved to England because of her husband's job. My closest friends now are over an hour away by car. A short conversation with a neighbour as you are passing is not quite the same thing as a friendship. Friends from "back home" rarely visit as you are so far away. E-mails replace snail mail. The telephone is a lifeline.
Now my girls have left home I am feeling even more at a loss: the pivotal meaning of my life lessened by the family unit halving. I am hoping when we move that we will be able to resume our social life again, be able to meet new people and have a social interaction once more. It sounds like I'm feeling sorry for myself, which I'm not - it's the price we paid for moving to a beautiful area and having all our hearts desired. We have been very happy here, but our needs have changed, and now it is beginning to feel like a life-sentence and I grow slightly resentful when things go wrong.
House-hunting carries on, still just at the stage of sorting out which things on our long list of wants we can compromise on, and which are set in stone. Living closer to a village is one of them. No more conversations with cows for me . . . Hah! Conversations with a computer instead!!!
I'm sure you will thrive when you are back amongst folks again. I often think I would like to live in an isolated rural spot, but I know I would be lonely and restless. Good luck with your house hunting, I look forward to seeing your new home.
ReplyDeleteI can certainly empathise with this, having lived much of my life at the end of various tracks. I don't really notice being lonely at the moment (blogging has mage a difference) but I might if I didn't have work trips to London regularly.
ReplyDeleteWhen my younger son moved away I was really quite depressed, though. My husband's solution was to go ahead with a second dog, which we'd planned to have sometime. A puppy certainly proved a distraction if only because I was so tired - when you leave for work at 7am, getting up in the middle of the night is rather wearing!
Good luck with househunting!
We have moved twice because the villages we were in became small towns and living in town in not something we want to do as both of us had been brought up in small communities.
ReplyDeleteWe like the peace and quiet of a small village life and have said that should things change here with more building, then we would move again.
I'm not sure that I would like to be as isolated as you clearly are. It has its compensations of course but life changes all our wants and needs over time and the need for friends and relatively easy contact is key to much of the considerations that have to be made.
Even here - a forty five minute ride to nearest relatives- our sister in law can't understand why we would want to live way out in the sticks. They visit rarely as she views it as an all day trip. Strange when it takes her 40 mins to get from house to work in city center every day!
Hope the search goes well and fast for you.
kind regards....Al.
Sounds as though you are having a dose of midwinter blues as well as having to cope with the change of lifestyle that comes when adult children leave the nest. It takes a lot of adjusting to especially when the said children aren't near enough to see regularly. As you know my sons are in South Africa and Suffolk so I know how it feels. When we can be sure that the snow isn't going to appear unexpectedly I'll have to come down for a visit so that I can see some of that wonderful countryside you keep showing us:)
ReplyDeleteI can imagine how you are feeling, we all need to share a cuppa and have a natter now and then. My house is full still with 3 adult children still at home and it feels crowded and busy and the mess drives me mad!!! However I know the time is coming when the nest will suddenly be empty and I'm not sure how I will cope, although I do have alot of company ay work and at church and of course hubby and I will remain! Hope you find the perfect new home very soon and enjoy village life, take care x
ReplyDeleteI read your post and didn't have time to comment this morning, so I'm pondering the comments of others as well as responding to your thoughts.
ReplyDeleteWe have lived most of the time in rural settings and are on our way shortly to look for another country place to live.
I think it takes inner resources and interests to live where one is a bit sequestered--and until one makes friends in a new place there can be a sense of having landed in a lonely environment.
Our children drifted in and out of our old home for a few years before they settled into homes of their own, so that transition was gradual. Having the internet has surely made communcating with family and friends in different time zones or even different countries an easy option.
As to why we write: I'm reminded of the passage in one of the late Madeleine L'Engles Crosswick Journals wherein she describes the period in her life when her writing was being rejected by publishers. She reached the realization that she HAD TO WRITE whether or not anyone ever saw the words, because that was a vital mode of expression for her.
Most of us will never be published writers, other than our blogs, but the fact that a few people stumble over us, take an interest in our stories and actually RESPOND is a great satisfaction.
For the record: I have always "talked" to animals, especially my cats. During the years that J. was away so much of the time, I once caught myself saying to my Katie cat, "Katie, that is dreadful manners to meow with your mouth full!"
My next thought was that I had probably been alone about long enough for one spell--criticizing the table manners of the cat, indeed!
Winter blues I suspect, exacerbates by money worries. However, the moving remit has now changed completely because T is coming HOME to live. Not for 6 months or so, until J has finished his Masters' degree, but now I feel so much more positive! I will blog about this . . .
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