Loneliness to the bone
I’ve been in bed for two months now. At first, with earplugs and headphones. Stimuli were off limits. Sound hurt. Everything hurt.
Now things are a little better. Sound still hurts, but I no longer have to be shut off from the world all day. And so I listen. To a world I can’t see, but can hear.
Every Monday and Thursday morning, I hear the same children’s voices. Early. Cheerful. Probably on their way to preschool. I can’t see them, but I know exactly what they look like. Backpacks. Little coats. Sleepy eyes.
I used to be a childcare worker. I loved starting at seven o’clock. Children coming in and joining me at the breakfast table. We started the day quietly. Some still half asleep, lazy and sluggish. When I think back on it, my eyes burn. And yes, a tear rolls down my cheek.
I now recognise my neighbours by their sounds. The front doors. The cars. The rhythm of their lives. My neighbour also works in childcare. She leaves early every morning. It’s almost Christmas. She must be counting down the days until she has a few days off.
I’m jealous. Not of the days off. Of the life.
I want to go back to work. To the Christmas spirit with the children. Decorating the group. Making Christmas lunch together. The happy faces when they see you again. I loved my job. Damn it, I was good at it too. Loved by children, parents, and colleagues. I dare to say that out loud.
Because I never went reluctantly. Because I could express my creativity. Because I loved the most beautiful thing there is: making children marvel every day.
For years, I looked out the window and saw my neighbor leave for work and come home again. Sometimes with things I always took with me too. For a new theme. Or because I had already prepared a craft at home.
Grief. Pure grief.
And then there are people who think you’re “having a nice time at home.” That you’re lying on the couch all day for fun. That you’re stuck in a body that doesn’t cooperate for fun. That you’re no longer the mother you want to be for fun. No longer the wife. No longer the friend. No longer the sister. No longer the daughter.
For years, there have been people who didn’t see my illness as an illness. I just needed a kick in the butt. I ignored countless comments. Looks that lingered just a little too long. Words spoken behind my back.
It hurt. It hurt so much that I started sharing less and less with the outside world. Because no one believes you if you don’t look sick. Eventually, I distanced myself from people who were once so dear to me.
And now, with all the attention on post-COVID and other long COVID conditions, those same people suddenly think: oh… maybe she is sick after all.
But that doesn’t change the pain they caused me all those years. Nothing about the sadness their words left in me.
Loneliness to the bone. Surrounded by people.
And while the world goes on, I have been mourning for years. Every day. In silence. In loneliness.
Git, from ME Centraal