Understanding Loneliness

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Loneliness can leave us feeling invisible, even to ourselves.

We often look to others for reassurance that we matter.

Others' silence isn't a measure of our worth.

For a while, one of the most reliable relationships in my life was with a traffic sign.

It was one of those electronic billboards you see on the outskirts of villages that nags you for how fast you're driving. Go too fast and the numbers flash red. Keep to the speed limit and you're rewarded with two words of appreciation:

I became a bit too fond of that sign. Embarrassingly, some days I would deliberately crawl past it, making sure I was going at exactly the right speed, just to receive its validation. And it delivered. Every time.

“You're most welcome,” I'd think, feeling absurdly pleased with myself.

Now, you might reasonably wonder why a mature woman would get quite so much satisfaction from being thanked by an illuminated slab of roadside equipment.

It was a particularly lonely period.

I'd recently returned from Switzerland, and was trying to find my feet in a community where I'd once felt very much at home. Much had changed in my absence, and cultivating a sense of belonging was proving difficult.

I was living alone, feeling bereft, and some days the only living creature I spoke to was an elderly cat. Not to be too judgy, but although he was selectively affectionate, his vocabulary wasn’t up to much. So the traffic sign became an accidental but welcome addition to my social circle.

I knew perfectly well that it was only thanking........

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