There has never been a better time to connect with others

FOR those who were considered vulnerable, 2020 was a very unusual year; with the closing of cafés and restaurants, the meeting of friends curtailed, weddings cancelled, holidays lost, and we are urged to stay home and stay safe, which in itself sent a ripple effect of uncertainty throughout the community, over our livelihood, our wellbeing and the spreading fear that perhaps we are all vulnerable after all.

I live alone and have done so for many years, but even when I didn’t, as an author, I would take myself off to the seclusion of my office in order to create a fictional world, quite different from the one I was living in.

Loneliness is not confined to those living alone; it can be felt while living in the midst of others, a community or a family, where sometimes we feel out of step, out of kilter and discovering that we don’t really belong.

Looking after a loved one with a life-limiting illness can give the sense of loneliness, as we consider that we are not doing enough and not able to talk about it, for who else would understand?

During the original lockdown, which hit us all so very hard, I had a deadline to meet and it took a supreme effort on my part to dive back into my fictional world when the actual alien and dystopian world in which we were living was knocking at the door; and oddly, it had an impact and influence on the ending of the novel.

But we are not all writers, able to put our own hopes or fears down into the written words. Many people just close into themselves.

Once loneliness seeps in, it becomes an invasive bug that attacks our ability to be rid of it; it strikes hard and we don’t phone or write to others to tell of how we are affected, or even to ask how they are for fear of being a nuisance and thinking that they will be too busy to be bothered about us, and thus don’t find that others too might welcome the contact and the chance to speak to someone. We have fallen into the mindset that other people’s lives are far busier and more important than ours, and that they won’t have time to talk.

Well many would understand, and it doesn’t take more than just a brave minute to pick up the phone to call a friend, or if you have access to the internet, discover that there are virtual discussion groups you can join and by doing so find the courage to chat to others in a similar position to yourself.

There are many out there longing to connect and, as we find ourselves in a new year and a new lockdown, there has never been a better time to do so.

Val Wood. ■■The Lonely Wife by Val Wood is available in paperback now.