Apr 9, 2020
When my kids were growing up, I chronically felt like an outsider or weirdo around the other moms. Not to the outward eye. To the outward eye, I looked like every other mom in my town. We drove the same cars and wore the same jeans. But on the inside, I felt out of step with the other moms. So when things got tough and I needed good friends, I hadn’t made them and felt really lonely.
That loneliness I felt wasn’t because I wasn’t around people. But because I felt like I couldn’t be MYSELF around people. I was the proverbial “lonely in a crowded room”.
As parents, we need support from each other. But in order to do that we need to be able to tell the truth of our experiences. Otherwise any connection we make still feels hollow. It can actually make us feel lonelier.