Jenifer’s Journal: Loneliness of the long-distance lifer

Life is full of misery, loneliness, and suffering — and it’s over much too soon.  — Woody Allen

“Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I’m 64?”  Happily, there was someone to sing “Yes!” to that Beatles musical query a dozen years ago, but last week?  When I turned 76?  Not so much.

Hey, I’m not complaining — in fact, I remember whining last year how old and stodgy 75 sounded, and that 76 seemed so much less so — which it does, though the operative word is “seemed.” The fact that I have seriously entered into what, with a great deal of luck, just might be my “4th quarter” astounds me. I mean, aren’t we all literally serving “life sentences” whatever their individual duration may be? 

I just never imagined mine would be lasting this long — and, as I say, with any luck, maybe longer. It certainly beats the alternative, but what keeps turning up like a bad penny is the loneliness — in fact, it seems now that it may be along for the rest of the ride.

I’ve written about it more than once here. You certainly don’t have to be old to be lonely, but it helps. 

When I saw that loneliness had made the front page of the Sunday New York Times two weeks ago (“More in US Living Alone Later in Life”) I thought it deserved further attention. According to authors Dana Goldstein and Robert Gebeloff, “Nearly 26 million Americans 50 or older now live alone, up from 15 million in 2000. Older people have always been more likely than others to live by themselves, and now that age group — Baby Boomers and Gen Xers — makes up a bigger share of the population than at any time in the nation’s history … In interviews, many older adults said they feel positively about their lives. But while many people in their 50s and 60s thrive living solo, research is unequivocal that people aging alone experience worse physical and mental health outcomes and shorter life spans.”

And even with an active social and family life, people in this group are generally more lonely than those who live with others …”

Great.

I think I do “feel positively” about my life, but I can’t argue with that last point. As with any demographic, however, lonely people are not homogeneous — the kinds of connection one person longs for may be very different than that of his or her neighbor.  For instance, I miss the daily intimacies of humor and friendship I shared with my husband, but one of my sisters-in-law, now retired but still enjoying a long, successful marriage, yearns for the camaraderie and variety she found in her work life in a busy office. 

She had been searching for a part-time job that would help fill that particular void when COVID hit and put a stop to her efforts.

The COVID factor brought enforced loneliness to many of us across the board, but even pre-pandemic, the UK saw loneliness as “one of the greatest public health challenges of our time.”  In 2018, then-Prime Minister, Theresa May, instituted the first Ministry of Loneliness. Sounds like it should be down the street from the Fortress of Solitude, maybe, but it’s for real and, according to Carmela Graciela Diaz, in her article, “Government Ministries of Loneliness Bridge the Gaps of Social Distance,” “Now, countries around the world are recognizing the public health effects of loneliness, which England’s national strategy defines as what happens ‘when we have a mismatch between the quantity and quality of social relationships that we have, and those that we want.’”

Such mismatches, according to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, are “associated with poor physical and mental health outcomes, including higher rates of mortality, depression and cognitive decline.”

The pandemic has abated, I’m relatively healthy, have family nearby and live comfortably in my home, but others aren’t so lucky — even a small shift in the variables of health, finances, family tensions and geography, etc. can deal a blow to anyone, but especially someone elderly. 

Well, Happy Birthday to me. 

Are you depressed yet?  I certainly am — except I still think “76” sounds younger than “75.” 

And you know what else?  If loneliness — intermittent or chronic — is an inexorable feature of aging, then so is the opportunity for better-than-never late-blooming. 

I may miss the heck out of finishing my husband’s sentences, setting out two mugs for morning coffee, tripping over his size 13s by the kitchen door, but I still can hang out with myself, feel a confidence I never enjoyed in my 30’s, take two bubble baths in a day if I want, and get passionate about new projects with a focus I couldn’t have managed before — oh, and say thank you, birthday.