Won’t you lonely?

Three years ago today we made the move from Great Yarmouth to Norwich. Not exactly relocating on a large scale but for anyone who knows Norfolk (and the road network), it might as well be a long distance relocation. It was a move that Mr Boo and I should have made as soon as we found out we were expecting Roo – We were in the middle of buying a house at the time and in hindsight should have pulled out and made the leap over to Norwich there and then. But opted to stay put for a few, which lead to almost ten years and two further children.

Whilst most of our family and friends knew of our desire to leave our little terrace house and move to a bigger home. Not to mention being being able to cut Mr Boo’s commute down so that he could have more quality time with the children. I’m not convinced that they ever thought that we would make the move.

However, after squeezing Piglet into our already small house we knew that we’d need to move. A few false starts along the way (as always with moving home) but we found this house and suddenly moving was a reality. Packing up our first real family home with a four month old baby was fun to say the least.

Won’t you lonely?

Whilst packing up our home I was chatting with one of my friends about our new house and that we were finally making the move we had always wanted. That she looked at me and said ‘won’t you be lonely?‘. Possibly thinking of me leaving behind my life that we had built around us, family and friends, the children’s school and even my own workplace (although I was on course to being made redundant).

Of course, I did the polite thing and said ‘of course not’. Explaining that I was only an hour down the road and that I had a whole new area to explore etc. She too replied and said that she’d be over to visit and that we could meet up often in the city for shopping, tea and cake etc.

I was already lonely

What I didn’t have the heart to tell her was that I was already lonely. Moving home wasn’t going to change that.

For me, I wasn’t leaving a support network behind. I wasn’t leaving family and friends who called round for a cup of tea because they were passing. I wasn’t leaving any of this because I never had it in the first place.

For the majority of my adult life, I have lived away from my family (long story short, we moved here when I was a teenager, my parents moved back when I was nineteen and I stayed as I had fallen in love Mr Boo). For a brief moment I had my mum back here in Norfolk but she found herself pulled back to Cumbria. So really I should be used to not having my own family support around me. And to a point, I have, I know that birthday’s, special occasions and milestones will all me communicated via text. So really it doesn’t matter where I live as this would just continue.

I’m still lonely

Three years later and we’re still in our new home (not sure when I will stop calling it that) and I’m still lonely. I can count on one hand the number of times that my friends have made the journey along the A47 to see me. If anything, I tend to head back to Great Yarmouth to see them. Whilst this isn’t a criticism of them and our friendships. It is just life. Everyone is busy juggling work, family etc. So it is hard to get together. Never mind the additional distance and time between us.

Being made redundant and not having a workplace to return to following maternity leave with Piglet means that I don’t have the fun and games of colleagues. The very nature of working from home and very rarely seeing another adult (unless delivery drivers count?) doesn’t really help things when you are already feeling lonely.

As time has passed I have grown used to being in my own company and there are worst things in life than being lonely.