Three life lessons I learned from being lonely

The only time in my life that I felt so lonely that I cried a lot, missed home, called home all the time and considered giving up on my dreams, was my first year in France.

Not only did I not have the confidence to fully throw myself into speaking French (even after doing it for 6 years at school and 2 years at university), but I was living inside the gates of a school building, in a tiny village in Normandy, with no one around after 4pm.

This was in the days before mobile phones, so my landline was my savior and I spent all my money on my phone bill, calling friends from home and writing letters to everyone in my family. The lady in the post office used to always laugh when I went there to buy stamps for all my letters each week.

I spent my time painting the contents of my tiny room, listening to French CDs and watching dubbed retro films to learn French better. But none of that took away from the emptiness of feeling like you have no one around.  It is a very lonely place to be when you feel you have no one around to talk to, no one who knows you and no one to understand what you are going through.

One major factor of being an expat, which is not talked about so often, is this possibility that moving abroad may not be the glamour and riches that you move away for, and that it can actually be a very lonely place, wherever you are. To others on social media, it may look like life is amazing and you are living the dream, but when the door closes after work each day, it can be a whole different ball game.

It does not matter if you have moved with a partner, have met a huge group of people to socialize with or you came alone, it is possible to feel lonely among others. Not having meaningful connections with people, or feeling like no one knows you can be a very difficult place to be and sometimes all we need is one friend to help us feel more settled or at home.

Everyone in life seeks acceptance and to feel like there is no one to accept you, is a horrible feeling. You can either see it through and hope things improve, or there is always the choice to return home or move to another country.

Here are my three life lessons that loneliness taught me:

1. I now LOVE being on my own – I appreciate time alone and sometimes crave it. I love the peace and quiet and having no noise around and know that it is good to be an introvert.
2. I appreciate my own company – I now am equipped with things to occupy my time (painting, crafts, running, journaling, calling people, listening to music, clearing out, reading and learning) and am happy to do these in peace without the company of others
3. I am always grateful for having people around when I choose to spend time with people – the thing about loneliness is that it is not a choice. Being able to choose to have people around is something I have a new-found appreciation for, as I know what it is like to not have that choice.

One of the hardest things about loneliness is when you DO have people around but still feel alone. This is common among expats who cannot find friends with anything in common, are seeking a partner and cannot find one suitable, or are in marriages where they do not feel appreciated or understood. We cannot judge loneliness and cannot decide who is allowed to feel or not feel lonely.

As much as loneliness can teach you a lot about yourself, it is much better to avoid it than have to experience it. However, if you have to go through this, ironically – know you are not alone and fall back on the ones who love you to get you through it. You never know the good a hug from your mum or your best friend can do, when you feel so alone.