I hit the space bar that stops the credits rolling and suspends them mid-screen, as my eyes refocus and I catch my reflection against the black backdrop. Laying in bed, blue light blocking glasses outlining my wide eyes, staring, stunned. My right hand is tucked under the side of my face, wedged between my cheek and the pillow, palm facing up, there to catch stray tears as they form and inevitably fall.
Now what?
I have finished another television show and next, I don’t know what to do. I am too lost to sleep, too tired to move around and too heartbroken to move on to something else yet. I am just still with the pain, still with the shock, still with the knowledge that the fictional characters I have fallen in love with, spent so much time with, fallen asleep watching— and therefore dreamt about and have become part of my day to day conversations as the more exciting stories to tell other than true ones at times— are done with me.
A familiar yet distant and long lost feeling creeps in unexpectedly. Of all the times this isn’t when I would think I would feel it. Forget travelling, weddings, dinners, big life moments and certain holidays. I don’t feel this way then. But here with the ending of another show, and all I want is someone to be layed there next to me, someone familiar, someone safe, to take their right arm, scoop it in under my right side below my propped one, and reach around to rest their hand on my belly as I feel the warmth of their body rest behind mine, and debrief.
Perhaps it is because I move around so much that I both have people that feel like family in so many places across the globe, and at the same time feel like I am never in one place long enough to find that emotional connection that moves into the physical and romantic and a mutual being the person to go to in these somewhat silly times of pain and processing.
Perhaps it is because television shows are my escape so that when they are done I am brought back to reality— a reality of knowing I have put in the work to handle the big things— the hurt and the pain and the suffering that comes with life, as well as the big wins and huge joy and celebrations. I have the tools, I have the means, I have the resources and the professionals and the support groups and the incredible circle of chosen ones to fill my days, to ensure I am giving it my best shot when it gets tough, and that I can fully embrace it when it goes oh-so-well. I know how to handle some of the most extreme, awful and yet sometimes inevitable, sometimes shocking pain that comes with being an adult. Pain that at a certain point you are longer protected from. I also know how to feel whole and excited with every endeavour I accomplish for myself and feel that overwhelming sense of pride and fulfilment that comes with living my life on my terms.
But I don’t know what tools I need to pull from my toolbox when it comes to processing the inconvenience of a show ending and my feeling of lost. They don’t cover that niche loneliness in support groups or therapy or growing up.
I have extraordinary friends. Friends that I have no doubt will text me after reading this and tell me I can call them to chat about it, anytime, that they too watched this show or that and want to know what I thought. But I won’t. This is, weirdly enough, perhaps too intimate to share with someone who hasn’t shared the entire experience of the journey. Finishing a show is one of the rare instances when I think, wouldn’t it just be nice to have a person here, someone who watched it all with me, snuggled in our Sunday sweats, week after week, as a way to unwind, invested, excited, nervous, curious, laughing along, crying along, no matter the genre, no matter the show, we are here to debrief and hold the space. Someone to fill the space between the reflection of my face in the credits screen and falling asleep.
But then I think about watching the show. I think about letting my tears flow, or my laughter shaking my body or my hours-long binging on rainy days or my several month-long breaks at times when life catches up and I think— “I don’t want someone to interrupt any of this”.
There are so many (dare I say the majority) parts of my life that I don’t even let the thought of the presence of that person come into the equation. Fulfilled in both my circle and more importantly, in myself, that there never feels like there is anything missing. Never feels like “if only”. Never even crosses my mind as I sit here writing trying to think of the last time I might have felt this way. This is a blessing of my demisexuality, and I am sure there are others who are not demisexual who have felt the same. There is such a superpower in my not letting it consume any thoughts, or in my non-ability to feel lacking or less than or incomplete. To be fair, I think about most of the things I do and wonder if there would ever be any room for that person, knowing the right one would have the room made for them, but the thought of that just feels so inconvenient.
I can pay my rent, attend movies, go out to dinner, see live entertainment, attend events, go on walks, cross off my bucket list, cook delicious dinners and live my day to day without the need for company or the thought creeping in. I can tackle tough days and breathe through family drama and accept death as a part of life and mourn and celebrate and yearn and plan ahead and chase dreams all without the thought of another being there making any of that all the more enjoyable or effortless.
But when a television show ends and I crave no longer being alone for those precious, private minutes of probing and questioning and craving and mourning that follow it feels so silly. Which quite honestly, also just makes me feel so grateful for my softness in those moments.
Happily single friends, let me know in the comments— are there small, seemingly insignificant on the surface moments that unexpectedly have you sitting in loneliness and craving the presence of that person?
Want to know more? Ask me a question and I will answer it in a future post.
I love you,
Lauren xoxo
Three things I struggled with this week:
🍷 When I was drinking, the prospect of anywhere with free drinks felt far too good to be true and I would take full advantage, behaving as if I was getting something good for me like free rent for the month or free food for the week and nothing should be left unclaimed. My brain now feels so lost when I am at an event offering free drinks. “I will take the fanciest soft drink you have. Yes. That bottled ginger beer that costs ten dollars. That is perfect. Two of those. Thank you.” But I still can’t shake the feeling of losing somehow, like I am being ripped off compared to my cocktail wielding compadres. Which is bananas, I know. Yay to my still-a-baby sober brain.
📷 I (finally) backed up my photos from my trip back home and then got lost going through them. I cannot wait to be back but I am already so sad to leave here. How can I live in multiple places at once? I am sort of, kind of working on that.
🤹 I have been presented with multiple good opportunities and options. Now I need to weigh them up and make sure I choose what is best for me (which of course means what is best for the people offering). I need to ensure I stick to my balance, and again not slip into my past workaholic and overbooked way. The goal is to maintain that balance I am so happy with.
Three blessings from this week:
💯 100 subscribers! I got the email this week that I had hit this milestone and I am honestly in awe. When I began writing again almost a year ago, for the first real-time since my teenage years, I never could have imagined one hundred of you would voluntarily sign up to read these rambles. Also somehow statistics show almost double that actually read it each week, which still confuses me as to how but I will take it! I am so grateful to all of you.
⛴️ I am spending five days on Vancouver Island, housesitting with a beautiful cat named Opaline this weekend. I am so fortunate to have this time to relax, go on long and thoughtful walks, and to arrange my writing goals and be inspired to pursue them.
💗 My gorgeous and wonderful roommates have extended the invitation to me to have this room on and off as I pursue this floating between countries life and I am so so very excited and grateful.
Three goals for the coming week:
🏡 Apply for some more housesits to ensure I am maximising my seeing of the world, especially Australia when I am home.
💻 Get all of my freelancing done by Thursday's end of the day (which means when you read this, feel free to ask me if I am done) so that I can spend my getaway creating and relaxing and being inspired.
🌿 As the weather warms, and everything gets significantly greener, I want to get out for a walk every day, at least once a day. Preferably in the quiet and still of the morning.
What I am enjoying this week: I saw Alok’s show here in Vancouver and I laughed until it hurt, and I wept alongside strangers (and my roommate) and then that cycle repeated for one of the best hours of my life. I cannot express how much this show changed how I view comedy, what it can be and more importantly who I could spend my time (and love of comedy) enjoying the work of.
I have been to many comedy shows, and sometimes I laugh for twenty minutes then think "surely the hour is up now, no?"
Other times I wish it would never end and when it is done, I long for comedy shows to have encores as live music does. This was one of those times.
Bonus! As it has been making the rounds in my writing community since I shared it last week, I wanted to share it here too. I may have done so before, but it hits every time. Plus Brandon is everything. (thread)
hi, lauren deborah! is free for subscribers every week. feel I am not sharing enough? ask me a question and I will answer it in a future post.
if you would like to say thanks for this love letter, please like or comment (it means so much to me to hear from you 🧡), forward it to a friend who might enjoy it or you can show your support and buy me a slice 🍕
I'm happy in my single life most of the time. However while I was away for work this past week, occasionally I thought how nice it would be to have someone to share my experiences with.
I don't watch TV or shows. I find when I finish reading a great books I feel bereft, exactly like I've lost friends.
I actually totally relate to this, for the most part in my day to day life I am happy to mill around and do my own thing without much thought on sharing the experiences but when I finished binge watching Heartstopper a few weeks ago I was hit with this wave of sadness that I hadn’t shared that whole 4 hour experience with someone. Thanks for sharing xx