I’m going to start this Century as I mean to go on –

apparently with a lung complaint from the turn of the LAST Century.

I have Pleurisy.

It hurts.

If I thought much about Pleurisy in the past it was as some vague and unspecific Victorian/Dickensian illness that involved coughing a few delicate spots of blood onto a snowy white hanky and looking wan.

I can confirm that it is more like hacking out an entire lung THROUGH your ribs until you cry.

The limbo between Christmas and New Year (without being too dramatic) can be a sort of wasteland of regret and hopelessness without structure or meaning.

I find it quite lonely at the best of times.

But there is no loneliness quite like being poorly on your own – apart from possibly being poorly on your own WITH SMALL CHILDREN.

It is a loneliness you can peel back in layers….

There is no one, for instance, to hand the children over to, so you can go back to bed.
There is no one to accompany you for an entire day in A&E, fetch you snacks, put money on the car, or wait to hear your name while you go for a wee.
There is no one to hold your hair back while you’re sick, or change your sheets when you have sweated into them.
There is no one to make you a cup of tea.
There is no one to get the Christmas decorations down, run the hoover round, put the washing on, get the kids up, feed them, and try to stop them killing each other or themselves.
There is no one to ask you how you’re feeling.

To be fair, I don’t think these most things happened when I was WITH someone either, which was its own sort of lonely, so I shouldn’t miss what I never had. And of course I should be grateful the children have at least made an effort…

They have both actually done a commendable job of EMULATING sympathy. Briefly. But let’s face it, children are not the most naturally empathetic of creatures, and therefore this has not really extended beyond a single day, a Get Well Soon card scrawled hastily on a scrap piece of paper, dry cornflakes in bed because they couldn’t reach the milk, the odd kiss, and being occasionally patted on the back when it actually looks like I might not take another breath.

However, to give them their due, they HAVE managed to play reasonably nicely together – in between arguments (obviously) – which has allowed me to take the odd nap.

I put a film on the other day and woke up semi-delerious to find they’d tired of it, and had somehow managed to unearth and build a game around a Bible, a picture of my Great Great Grandmother, and a condom with a best before date of May 2003.

You could not make this stuff up.

Look, on reflection I believe the latter items were both tucked INTO the Bible for safe keeping, a storage solution that must have made sense to 20ish year-old me, but frankly it was so random I had to double check I was awake. And there was no one to share the randomness with – another layer on top of the layers…

For the first time in a long time it’s really made me question my decision to stay in a city that’s not my city, where I don’t have family back-up or support. It’s another particular flavour of loneliness, an isolation. A lack of options. A panic.

Oh, I have lots of friends and lots of them have been lovely, don’t get me wrong – but asking for their help isn’t easy at the best of times. And it’s even harder when you’re already feeling vulnerable. It seems ridiculous, but it’s when you most need help it’s hardest to seek it. And around Christmas, of course, everyone else’s village is kind of busy. Or ill too…

I suppose I just want to acknowledge the hard and the lonely stuff, to myself. And to offer sympathy to others. To you, if you’re finding life hard, and if it’s even harder for you to actually ASK for sympathy, or for help. However much you need it. However much you deserve it.

You are not alone in the lonely.

So to the single parents limping through the last of the holidays with over-sugared, spoiled-rotten, and generally rotten children.

To the people parenting through stuffy noses, both-ends-at-once stomach bugs, and hacking coughs.

To the Pleuretic, should that even be a word.

May your blessed routine and childcare return next week.

May you and your village get better soon.

And in the meantime, may your offspring bring you offerings of dry cereal, homemade cards, antique photographs, and out-of-date contraception.

Amen.