is loneliness overrated?

This morning, I tweeted something about two thoughts that have been making me feel all sorts of things lately.

One is the fact that Aiya seems to have decided to live abroad, which is fine, but here’s the thing. Children aren’t obligated to take care of their parents. I know this. However, we didn’t grow up in a family where our parents are chucked in a retirement/elders’ home (not that there’s anything wrong with this, but it just isn’t what our family does). I don’t want this for my parents – unless, of course, they choose it for themselves.

So with Aiya gone, and my parents having no other children, their care falls on me. Now I don’t mind it, but I’m rather useless and so in the case of an emergency, I feel like I will be of little use to them. I’m worried that I won’t be a good enough daughter, that I won’t be able to take care of them the way they should be. And I’m kind of scared about having to take care of them by myself.

Now, people can point out and say that my parents are financially independent and surely my brother can contribute towards their care, but it doesn’t always come down to money, now does it? Taking care of someone requires effort and time and energy and being in good enough health to be able to do so.

This future, without Aiya, who was at first being under the same roof as me and then a 1-hour (or so) drive away and is now an 8-hour flight away, is scary.

The second thought is the realisation that I’m at an age where most of my friends are getting married and having kids. Pregnancy and child birth and children below the age of 13 terrify me so while I will listen to your stories/complaints about your spouse, I will not do the same about you children. This means that I will naturally grow distant from most of my friends and, since I’m at an age where making friends keeps getting harder, find myself quite alone.

It was this second fear that attracted some random account, which told me that loneliness is overrated. And well, is it? I mean, not loneliness itself. Loneliness and being alone is fucking awful. People – myself, included – often brush it off, but dear lord. None of us want to be by ourselves all the time. I want to be with other people, experience things with other people, know what it’s like to share a space with someone.

But this fear of loneliness, is that overrated? Are we ever going to be as alone as we think we will? Or do we let this fear overwhelm us to a point of building a safety net even if that safety net makes us unhappy?

I’m 30. And I’m single. And I have no plans of getting married or having kids. And I can’t really think about a future where I live up to 50 or 60 or 70 or whatever. I’m generally okay with life. I have come to terms with it. But that’s also because I’m surrounded by people who don’t let me doubt for a second that they love me, that they care about me, that they are there for me.

For a long time, I thought these friends would stay where they are. That we’d grow old together. And yet, now, it’s slowly hitting me that the building blocks that this safety wall or whatever is made of are slowly loosening, they are falling off, the wear and tear is getting to them.

And it’s fucking terrifying that I could someday end up all alone.

But this fear isn’t so great yet that I have found myself settling for certain things, like a man or a family or a life that I don’t really want but think I should have just so I don’t end up alone.

Sometimes, people my mother’s age tell me that the loneliness of not getting married and having kids is one I want to avoid. And it may be true. Maybe our fear of loneliness is perfectly rated in that we should do whatever we can to make sure we don’t end up alone. But what if this loneliness isn’t as bad as say, being with the wrong person? Slaving away to bring up children? Not being happy until you are 60 and can finally retire from a job you hate?

And you may ask: but what if the choices you make to guarantee a future where you aren’t alone does end up being perfect? What if it fills your life with purpose, with joy, with love? What if you miss out on that because you don’t let yourself believe it can be a good life?

But we’ll never know, will we? And even if we do, we tend to have to settle for the life we get, whether you stay single or childless, get married, have your happily ever after or lose them to another/death, or have kids who stay with you or move away. Whatever life sends our way, we put up with in most cases. We get used to our reality, our life, sometimes envying others or feeling blessed compared to others, but without ever knowing if things could have been better or worse.

I went through this whole health thing recently and friends would ask me how I got through it and I would just shrug, but the answer is simple: I got through it because I had to.