It feels like a heavier loneliness than the usual "well I'm separated and alone without my kids the next few days" feeling.
I worked so hard when I moved out to set up a house for my kids and me. Now that it's 7 months later, the house feels temporary, unfinished, with a bunch of hand-me-down furniture. Temporary stuff for a temporary place. It's not the community I want to live in. It's expensive. The entire area I live in lacks a feeling of community (everybody complains about that). I don't know where I want to live.
I'm working full-time. Busy again, which feels good. But it feels kind of meaningless. I'm earning money, which is necessary. And I enjoy my job enough day to day.
I've never been great at building a support network in my post-college adult life. I likely stayed in too many long-term relationships because they felt "safe" and I avoided the lonely feeling. I have one good friend in the area, a bunch of work colleagues, and that's about it. I haven't had much success during the 7 months making new friends, which is really on me I guess. Like DejaVu suggested, I usually say yes to every invitation, but I think I need to put myself out there more somehow.
I'm 40 and I have 3 little kids. When married I spent quite a bit of time with them, but I wasn't the primary parent of the household like I am now. It is daunting. W and I haven't really separated those duties yet. I haven't gone out and bought them all clothes, it hasn't made sense since I still have the clothes from moving out that fit them.
There are things going on in my situation that are probably sparking these feelings. I'm choosing not to post much of that right now. There is a re-realization that this is really happening, now that the ball is rolling.
This is one of those posts that sounds more wallow-y negative than I actually feel in the moment. It helps to let it out sometimes.
