No One Should Have To Do This Alone
There’s a type of loneliness nobody talks about—and a form of support we’re all meant to have
I stared blankly at the moonlit ceiling, cursing the faint green light from the smoke detector for keeping me up, when I knew that what was really stopping me from falling back to sleep was the wrestling match going on in my mind.
The questions felt enormous as I lay alone in my bed.
The answers wouldn’t come.
Is this really the life I want? Who am I becoming now? What is all of this actually for?
They’re the kinds of questions you’re not quite sure who you could say them to out loud without getting a weird look—or a worried one—or a well-meaning “stop overthinking so much; you’re fine.”
They leave you feeling a kind of ‘lonely’ that doesn’t get talked about much. It’s not the loneliness of not having a partner; I’d grown comfortable with that again—perhaps too comfortable—and it’s not the loneliness from a lack of friends, or from having way too much blank space on your calendar. Neither of those things were a problem either.
It’s a deeper, stranger brand of loneliness.
It’s the loneliness of changing.
Especially when you’re not sure exactly what it is that you’re changing into. You just have the sense of being drawn toward something different, something more aligned but as-yet unclear, while everyone around you seems perfectly content tootling along with things exactly the way they are.
If you’re familiar with this kind of loneliness too—or you know someone who seems restless but they can’t articulate why—read on.
The pull most people don’t talk about
I’ve come to believe that more people are feeling this pull than yet feel safe to admit it.
You see it surfacing more and more. The successful person you hear confess they don’t know what it’s all for anymore. The friend who says “I just feel like there has to be more than this” but then quickly laughs it off, embarrassed, unsure what to say beyond that. The colleague who took up pottery or hiking or meditation or Bikram yoga but can’t quite explain why, except that something in them needed it.
I’ve been all of those people. I still am some of them.
If you see yourself in any of these descriptions, you know how disorienting this kind of questioning can feel. Maybe even a little frightening.
The slow, sometimes uncomfortable recognition that the life you built—maybe a good life, maybe one that looks great on paper—no longer quite fits the person you’re becoming. The realization that you’ve been living your whole life inside a set of assumptions about who you’re supposed to be and what you’re supposed to want, and some part of you is starting to question whether those assumptions were ever really things you wanted in the first place.
The good news—the way I’ve come to see it—is that these aren’t exactly midlife crises, even though that’s the go-to label our culture is quick to apply. They’re more like a stirring; an awakening; or as Sarah Ban Breathnach called it in her New York Times bestselling book, Something More, a ‘divine discontent’.
And the stirring isn’t the problem. The dissolution doesn’t have to be disastrous. All of it can be the start of something beautiful...if you approach it in a particular way.
Why we’re not meant to do this alone
Not only from my own experience, but from that of every other person I’ve walked the path of change with and every person I admire, I know one thing to be true: this kind of becoming is very, very hard to do in isolation.
Not impossible. But hard. Because the people in your existing life—as much as they may love you, and whether they’re conscious of it or not—have a silent stake in you staying the same.
If you change too much it can feel, for them, like a destabilization of their reality. So even without anyone ever consciously intending any harm, you can find yourself surrounded by people who gently, lovingly, keep you living inside the old version of yourself. The one they know. The one that’s comfortable...for them.
It’s just not necessarily comfortable for you anymore.
What’s helpful during those seasons isn’t more people telling you you’re ‘fine’. Because I promise you this: it’s more than ok to want more than ‘fine’.
What’s helpful is the company of other people who also find themselves staring at the ceiling in the middle of the night with the same kinds of questions. Who are feeling the same kind of stirring, the same restlessness. People who don’t need you to explain why you can’t go back to how things were, because they too are living their own version of needing to step out of their old story. People who can hold these kinds of questions with you without rushing to answer them—and who will remind you, when you forget, that you’re not losing your mind. You’re finding it. You’re not unravelling. You’re unfolding.
There’s an old truth that shows up in nearly every wisdom tradition and that’s been the foundation of nearly every meaningful human endeavour: we go further together than when we go alone.
The path of becoming who you’re actually meant to be isn’t meant to be a solitary trek.
It’s meant to be walked in good company. Because here’s another old truth that’s shown up in a myriad of languages and across different time periods: we’re all just walking each other home.
What I’m building
For a while now, I’ve been dreaming about creating a space for exactly this. Last summer, those green smoke-detector-light sessions with my ceiling gave rise to the “Good Morning, Sunshine” series and before that, the Come Together, Make It Happen sessions. I now realize that this kind of thing was what I was wanting to build for myself as much as anyone else.
It’s not a course. Not a coaching program, or a support group. It’s something more like a circle—a warm, ongoing gathering place—for the people who are feeling the pull and choosing to follow it. A sort of coffee house for those who are gently becoming—even if you don’t know to what, nevermind the how. A place where the 2am questions are not just welcome but expected, where you’re allowed to think out loud together with people who get it, and where the work of imagining how you might build a more true, more free, more authentic life is something you get to do in supportive company rather than all alone.
The details are still taking shape, and I’m playing with a name for it that has to do with the very biology of transformation itself (hint: it might have to do with what actually happens inside a chrysalis, as described in this other post), so I’m not ready to share specifics yet. But I wanted to plant the seed with you now, because if something in this piece resonated—if you recognize yourself feeling ‘the loneliness of changing’—then you’re exactly the person I’m building it for.
More soon. For now, just know that it’s coming. And that you’re not as alone in this as it sometimes feels.
If you’re not subscribed yet, go ahead and fix that at the button below—because the people on this list will be the first to hear when the doors open.
And if someone else in your life is feeling the same pull, share this post with them. Sometimes the simplest kind thing you can do is to remind a friend they’re not alone.
Let’s gently become together. 💛
Kelly
P.S. in the meantime while this circle takes shape, you can get a free copy of the Magic & Miracles Formula at kellywagnerkw.com/magic-miracles—a simple set of daily practices for staying grounded and lifting you up when life is in flux.