Seeing my son over Thanksgiving weekend was wonderful — and then the Empty Nest Blues hit again.

Part of adjusting to my youngest son growing up and becoming an adult and planning to move out — is the whole question of what value and worth do I have as a single woman, living alone?  I didn’t realize how much of my value I placed in being part of a family — until that’s not there.

And I’m also having to deal with just plain loneliness.  I’m an introvert — so it’s a bit of a paradox.  I love having alone time.  But then when I have a whole day where I only see a few strangers at the haircut place — it’s tempting to fall into loneliness.

Last Monday, when I was missing my son, and had hurt my back that morning — I tried to straighten my Christmas tree and utterly failed, ending up trying to hold up the tree for twenty minutes while trying to readjust it so it wouldn’t fall over.  And I got to feeling sorry for myself, since that was something my ex-husband used to take care of.  And I felt all the more alone.

All that’s the background.  Today was a day that should combat loneliness for at least a week.  Today was full of friends — and friends I’ve made because of who I am, totally apart from my kids and all but one of whom don’t even know my ex-husband.  These are people who know me and who like me — and knowing whom brings me lots of joy.

First was church — an excellent and uplifting sermon, followed by getting to talk with good friends.

Then my small group met at my house — and one of the men brought a small saw (I’d asked) and cut off branches as needed and straightened my tree beautifully!  Yes, my small group is made up of people from church, but as it happens these are different people from the friends I’d already talked to at church.  We talked in depth about what’s going on in our lives.  They love me and are looking out for me, and the whole group means so much to me!

Then I went to an open house of some friends who just finished remodeling — and saw yet more friends from church.  Again, it was a different group from the people I’d already talked to, mostly from a small group I used to be part of — but more wonderful people I really care about, just enjoying being together.

And I finished up the day with a group who like to play games, and we played three games of Dominion and I just enjoy that so much.  This group I became part of when I was dating one of the men (the other two men are there with their wives).  We broke up, but they let me stay part of the group, and it turns out these are all people I love to hang out with, and they like to play one of my very favorite games, and it’s just become a great part of my life.

So, yeah, I’m not feeling lonely today.

Instead, I feel abundantly blessed.