It’s Time to Be Real About Loneliness

don't have a great bedside manner. I hugged one of my staff members today and I think she's in shock because I get into it. I'm not big on four place small talk. I'm like, Hi, okay, did we get that?

I think from my father. My mother was an extremely cold, scathing person, you know, like she could just cut through, but she used that to the end in a very bad way, where she would literally smash everything in the house and she would go below the belt.

swings and things going on. So I'm aware that it's Mother's Day, and I'm aware that people are alone or single moms or lost people or their kids or their husbands didn't or their partners or their boyfriends or their self grand kids didn't reach out, you know, and like I may my daughter reach out to someone to make them feel good because they're older and like kids can be fleeting and forget things in the moment they think about it, but then the next moment they do something else,

And I think we have to like hold people to that. And in that day, I was thinking about this move and I had a slightly unpleasant start with my daughter. I won't get into that, of course, so I was a little bummed. I was a little sad, I was a little sleep deprived. It was just like, it's not like my birthday, which I despise, but sometimes there's a day that if it's not what you wanted it to be, or it's a disappointment, it can be a weird day.

And then something happened where I wanted to honor my team, the moms for my team, and do something that I've never done before, and I won't get into that detail, but that got botched too, and I was upset about that. And I'm a person that when something gets ruined, I get very very upset, like I can't get out of it.

So I was upset for partially something I happened with my daughter, and then I was upset that I didn't get to honor everybody on the day and the way that I wanted to, particularly because I've never done it before, and it was the first time that I had the

best intentions and effort and knowing myself. This morning, everyone will come into work and we're moving, and it will be like, not huggy, kissy, you know, how is your day and has the weather and had your sleep, which I do, but sometimes we're right into the action, and I do want to work on that. This morning I was like, Okay, be kind. Not that I'm not kind,

I can just be like direct. So yesterday was the day, and it had a weird start and I ended up on a rooftop of my daughter and we were just talking, and we're talking a lot about this move to each other, Like she has a very good friend, a best friend that you know, she really gonna miss, and I'm feeling like more than secondhand, like first hand sadness about that.

I'm very nostalgic and I don't like her leaving this best friend, Like she literally would stay and we would not move this entire house and this entire crazy move for this one friend, which is completely certifiable, but like I love this one friend for her, so I'm sad about that, and like she has a best friend, like she has a best friend who's just like her in the similar way that she's sweet and cute and like smart and slightly like flighty and ditsy and like fashionable.

And I'm just a little broken hearted about that. And no, she'll love new friends, but like my best friends are from high school, so I have anxiety about that. And then you know, I'm a very OCD person, so like we have to do this, and we have to do that, and we have to unbraid this, and we have to do that, and the staffing and it's just like I'm very activated right now. I'm very heightened, I'm very wound up. I'm very manic, and I'm manic on a normal day.

So there's a lot going on. I'm not a person that's scared to move. I know that this is a move in the right direction. Do I know that Florida

and where I'm moving is like my life's dream. That's so irrelevant because I'm just moving in the right direction, And so is my is my daughter because we don't have a community where we live, and I need for my daughter because we have a smaller family because both my parents are dead and she has good grandparents that she loves, and a number of different things, but it's not I don't know, she has enough siblings, so I want a community for her. And we have a community

in Florida. Like yesterday we spent Mother's Day with my friend Terry from high school and her husband and her son and daughter, and we did that same thing last year. We went to see a play and we went to dinner. And it feels like now we might have a tradition starting. And that's what my daughter loves. Like every year for Christmas Eve, she and I go to the Hamptons by ourselves and we go get the special ornament at the one place, and we go ice skating and then we

come back for the day at the main house. And like, I don't know, that's probably will probably in the future spend Christmas in the Hamptons unless I'm in a relationship or something like that. Like I want her to feel part of something, and she loves that. And she loved that with my last relationship because it was like she felt like she was part of something, but that was a little insul or two that wasn't like as warm

as what we love and are looking for. I have a big community there so we can feel like we're part of something. And yesterday I was honest with my audience kind of because I'm being honest with myself too. When we have things that are going on and we can't control them, we don't bring them up, we stifle them. And it's almost more annoying, even in therapy to talk about something it doesn't matter, I can't do anything about it, and then someone wants to help you manage it, and

you know that's frustrating. I will say that I've been very lonely living in the suburbs in Connecticut because I haven't known anyone. And then if someone's like, you should meet friends, It's like, I don't want to meet friends. Like you're a certain age, I don't want to meet friends, you know, I just don't want to. And I also don't trust people. And I'm also a public person, so it layers that, and no one wants to hear a

public person complain about being a public person. But like, I don't know who wants to be friends of me because of me, and I don't just want to make new friends, and so I've been really insular. And guess what, I'm a very insular person to begin with. So the pandemic gave me license to be as insular as I want and no one would notice. That's the difference. No one would notice. And because everybody's being that, and so you feel like you have a group with you that's

being that. And then the pandemic opens up and you're like, oh wait, now we're like over here and a lot of people.

but things change, trends changed. So now I'm in a place where I'm alone all the time, to the point where I'm not going to get in the car and go drive seven minutes into the town to like shop or go to a museum or go to a workout class.

experienced the culture. I got a little sandwich, Like I come back, I look at a little leather makeer, like in Italy, like on a street, like I like to see something. Because I'm not that social and I like

to be alone, but alone with people. So in Miami, for example, which isn't where I'll be living most of the time, that's where I have a place I can just walk outside and like see somebody on a rollerblade or at the beach and I'm not talking to them, but I could get a coffee, like I've breathed the air and experienced human life.

don't want to be like shuffling around so much. And when you're a divorce kid, that happens to begin with her stuff is in Connecticut. You know, she's school in Connecticut, like you're in Connecticut. So if I go in the city, I'm going in for a panel, I'm going in for a business thing. It's transactional. Go in, get makeup done, do social media, do the appearance, come home, repeat, Like it's not like you're having a relationship with the city.

You're just going in and like getting out. You're not like walking around and you know, going to a market and looking at a farm stand. And this weekend for Mother's Day, we went in because we were meeting my friend and her family and Brennan and I were walking around the city. We went to like a street fair and just bought disgusting, gross pickles and like bought a

vintage pair of shorts that was woven. Like it was just like we were experiencing And that to me was like, wait, this moved to Florida means when I come to New York for work, I'm going to experience the city again. I'm going to have a relationship with the city because I'll be staying in my apartment and I'll be having this experience.

to Miami, and I turn it out. I get dressed, I make it madder, I talk to people. I'm social. To me, that's the biggest thing in the world. Then I hide because it was too much for me. And then like I know friends who are like, yeah, since after Miami, I did this, I did that, I did

the other thing. I'm going to chipry on ets and and I'm like, what, like what I am still recovering today a week ago from that, Because it's not just the physical and it's not the staying out late, which was amazing and fun, and I went on this incredible major boat and met some interesting people and had the greatest time. But like that, I gave it all I got.

That was the marathon. Like I put my back, my soul, my body, my blood, my hydration, all of it, my pores into it, got home and like it took five days to unbraid that. That's me storing up. Now I'm the camel or the bear. That's like hibernating until the

next thing. And that's week in a May thirty first, Like I'll go to the Hampton Memorial Day weekend, I'll fiddle around my house, I'll go on the boat like all normal things, like nice things, go to dinners, but like I won't like burst like that for a month from that. So it's weird when you see people that are seem so out there and it seems like what are they talking about? How are they an introvert but

or an insular or whatever you call it. I don't need to label myself, but like I'm just telling you that I left my own devices could be in the house for days on end, and I could even do that in like a city when I used to live in New York City, but you walk outside and go to the chew a pair, or go to get your nails done, or leave the house.

you watch good shows. You're not dead, but you feel a little dead. And then you decide, wait, I don't want to just survive this thing. I want to I want to thrive this thing. And that's the difference. And that's kind of where I'm at right now. And I do think it shows and I'm slowly explaining this to people as I realize it myself, as my daughter says to me, I didn't realize you were so unhappy and so lonely. And it's like I kind of didn't either. There's nothing to say. So now I've said it and

it's out. And I really always love if I can say something to connect to other people and help them. You know, it's never really about me.

something that could help other people. If you saw the amount of people in my comments, be like, wait, this was me, This is me. This speaks to me. I want to do this, I want to move. I didn't even realize I was thinking this, like all that stuff people stifle. Everybody stifles men, women, everyone, stifles kids.