Bitz 'N' Blogs with CJ Cross

Today is Wednesday 15th July and I am sitting here waiting for the Power to go off.

This will be AusNet second attempt at maintenance work on the power grid. The first time, it was a Tuesday and I had arranged to go to my Fathers for the day. Thing was, due to the wet weather, the work was cancelled and rescheduled for a later date. That date being today. At time of writing, I still have the lights on .. so we’ll see.

Now to the blog.

Over the last few weeks I have been thinking about loneliness and feeling lonely and I wanted to write about it from my perspective.

For almost 7 years now I have been largely on my own. And if I’m being honest, its not been great.

I am a very social person. I enjoy being in the thick of things, surrounded by people, even if I’m doing something as basic as going to work riding public transport.

When it came to friends, I found as long as I could go to wherever they were, I was going to have a good time.

Then the pandemic hit and shortly thereafter my mobility began to suffer and, well, if you’re a regular reader of this blog, you know the rest.

i am not alone. I am not alone because I have my husband, my family, my support workers who work with me every day, my workmates ( via a computer screen but still) and my friends. (mostly by phone or online) I am not alone because I still get to interact with people when I attend my appointments or go somewhere on a Community Access outing.

I am lonely because despite all of that, I still spend a large amount of that time on my own. With nothing but two kittens for company (and who, if I’m being perfectly honest, spend most of the day asleep in their respective corners of the house and make for very poor conversational companions) more often that not, it is simply me, myself and I …and that makes me very sad.

*** Update***

At exactly 9:47am – the power went out . I am now running on a backup dongle ( purchased as a result of the last major outage and kept as a spare just in case) and a punch of bottle lights that have been in a cupboard collecting dust for quite a while. Thankfully, there is a torch somewhere so I can use that if need be.

Anyway, where was I?

I am lonely. A lot of the time I talk to myself out loud. I know they say that talking to oneself is the first sign of madness but, the truth is, I do it just to hear a voice. I have no doubt my neighbours have heard me – a near 50 year old woman having rather animated conversations with herself on a regular basis – but my house is so quiet that if I didn’t, I’d go mad.

I home from home. I work from home. I’m home about 95% of the time. While my mobility has improved thanks to my surgery a year and a half ago, I am still not quite able to leave my house unaided so, I can’t go anywhere or do anything without a helping hand.

When I was a kid, I imagined I’d have one of those lives where you’d keep the same group of friends your entire life. You’d still keep in touch, visit each other, have coffee dates, lunch and dinner dates maybe even go away together on holiday. Of course, that would alter slightly due to work, marriage, kids etc but you’d always find time for each other. Everyone would live within 30 minutes of each other and thats why it’d be so easy to stay in touch. Turns out, life doesn’t work out that way. Life isn’t a sitcom where the same characters stay around season after season. Sometimes life means you spend a larger part of your life by yourself- even if you’re surrounded by everyone you’ve ever cared about.

Thanks for reading

Ceej

PS: AusNet now believes the planned outage for today has been cancelled however, there is an “unplanned outage” affecting the area. *Sigh* I wish they’d make up their minds

PSS: This is not the new posting date- i am simply writing this blog for something to do while the power is out