I am coming up on the two-year mark fast… in just a bit over a month now. And I'm sure this is how it goes for everyone, but the past 4 or 5 months now whole new levels of loneliness have started to creep in. A much deeper physical loneliness.
The loneliness of not having affection and physical comfort has become torturous this year. It seems to come in waves. For weeks, my heart will be consumed with wishing for someone to magically appear to comfort me. Someone that I feel safe enough with to just allow them to hold me. Someone I could let all my crazy out with and not feel weird. Someone who's shoulder I could cry on literally until I got snot all over their shirt and they didn't even care - just like Drew.
That's the thing, while I do miss the romantic stuff… flirting and teasing, sweet date nights, an amazing sex life… the stuff I really miss the most was just having that one person I could let all my crazy out with. And who could do the same with me. And neither of us was phased by each other's crazy. In fact, sharing those parts of ourselves was what made us closer to each other than we'd ever been to anyone in our lives. And it really sucks to have that particular person missing.
Now, instead (and I have never shared this with ANYONE folks…) I have an imaginary man friend. I pile up pillows on the other side of the bed at night and lay on them and pretend this kind guy is there. Sometimes I cry my eyes out into his pillowy embrace - which is really lame, since he has no freakin arms, so there IS no embrace. Like the desperate weirdo that I am, I imagine a fictitious man and fictitiously kind and warm and comforting conversations that we have together about how much I miss Drew. And about how much pain I'm in. And all of the other messy stuff I don't really let out with others too much anymore. And of course all the while, I feel like a lunatic.
I don't know if other people do things like this. I suppose it's not that weird. I had an imaginary friend when I was a child in the years after my mom died - the really hard years. He helped me through a lot, and made me feel less alone. So I guess I've just kind of reinstated the imaginary friend in some form. Weird or not, it really does help. Even though it may just be a pile of pillows and all pretend... sometimes it's helps me to pretend someone is there with me, instead of focusing on how alone I am. No, it's not the same as literal physical touch and a real person by my side. Not even close. But it helps me to take my mind off of that a little, and somehow makes me really feel less alone.
For now, that works for me. It's really all the man I can handle anyway - as I'm still far far too freaked out by the concept of actually letting a real man into my life in any sort of close way, even as a close friend. I think that maybe imagining myself being comforted might help me to slowly open back up to the idea of allowing someone real into that space again one day… when its right.
Am I alone here? Anyone else out there got themselves a pillow man or woman? God, please tell me I'm not the only one and you all think I'm nuts…
