People

I feel lonely a lot.

I've never been one to have a whole lot of friends, generally preferring to have a few close friends rather than a crowd, but sometimes it feels like I have hardly any friends at all.

It's not for lack of trying. I've made more friends than I can count over my years of Bible School and college, not to mention the friends I had back at home before I moved out. But I've moved, they've moved, sometimes we keep in touch, sometimes we don't. People are so busy. We keep trying to connect, but it never seems to work out. It's easy to just drift apart. I try, but sometimes days and weeks go by without an opportunity to spend time with a friend.

That's a big part of why I like having people live with us. Then at least there are people around, and occasionally we can hang out or have a meaningful conversation. But even living in community, there are still a lot of days when I feel pretty lonely.

My days are long. It's just me and the kids, for hours on end. There are a lot of days when I start feeling pretty desperate for an adult conversation, or some kind of human interaction that doesn't involve toddlers tugging on my legs or the incessant "mommy mommy mommy mommy!" Although being with my kids all day means that I am never alone, I still feel very alone.

The other day, as I was thinking about this, I tried a really interesting exercise. I found it to be helpful, so I thought I would share it with you.

I wrote down a list of people—people that I care about, that I consider to be my friends. The criteria was simple: any person who is a part of my life that I want to be a part of my life, and that I would be willing to make an effort to keep as a part of my life, I included in the list. My list included people of all different ages, living nearby and far away. Friends I haven't seen in a while but would like to connect with again. People who I don't know very well yet but would like to have as friends. Family members too, because those friendships take effort just like the other ones. As people came to mind, I wrote them down.

You know what? That list was a lot longer than I thought it was going to be. And suddenly I didn't feel quite as lonely.

I look at that list, and I see a list of people who really matter to me.

I found this to be helpful, because it switched things around from the way I so often think about friendship. I constantly find myself getting caught up in wondering what others think of me, wondering how many people would put me on their "list of friends" or consider my friendship to be a priority, thinking about how rarely people reach out to me, or how infrequently I get to spend time with a friend. Instead, this reminded me of my own priorities—the people that I care about. It made me excited to reach out to them again and invest in my relationships with them.

So the next time you're feeling lonely, I suggest that you give it a try. Like me, you may be pleasantly surprised by how many friends you really have.