I am listening to this Flaming Lips song The Morning of the Magicians. It reminds me of my ex and how I felt when we divorced in 2008. D and I were married for 8 years. I asked for a divorce because he had anger issues, depression, and substance issues that I didn’t want to live with anymore. I have this story that when we broke up he complained to our friends about how I treated him badly. Before my divorce I felt like I had a lot of friends. After the divorce, some of our friends wouldn’t look at me or talk to me at social events, and I wasn’t invited to as many social events.

I think I am feeling sad and lonely about this because I have struggled to maintain close friendships and have fewer close friendships as I have gotten older. I am close with my sister who lives in a different state. And I have one close friend in my town, and I haven’t seen as much of him lately.

I think I depended on being a part of a couple to make friends, and my current relationship doesn’t provide that benefit.

My teen daughter is about to graduate from high school, and I am worried about being really lonely when she moves out. Maybe I am pretty lonely already.

My neighbor yelled at me a couple of times this month about an issue with the property line fence and told me that the other neighbors don’t like me. (I’ve lived in this house since September, my boyfriend lives 1.5 hours away.)

I feel like it would be easier to make friends as part of a couple, and I have a thought that single women are not well received socially over a certain age (I’m 46.)

C: Home alone at night working on stuff and listening to music
T: I’m a social outcast because I’m not in the right kind of relationship
F: Self-pity
A: Cry, think about the past, think about how hard it is to make friends, think about things I could do to make friends and how they will be awkward, think about social rejection in the past, think about how friends I could reconnect with aren’t good enough
A: I act like a social outcast and devalue my relationship
R: I allow myself to remain in the experience of social isolation

C: Same
T: I can have as many friends as I want
F: Curious
A: Think about people I could reconnect with, think about fun things to do, think about in person classes to take (I’m vaccinated), appreciate my friends and family, let go of trying to control the future, let go of regret about the past

Thanks, any feedback is appreciated. 💕