I can be needed all day and still feel emotionally alone

Dear Delyara, That is the kind of loneliness I know best now. Not empty-house loneliness. Not no-one-to-call loneliness. I mean the loneliness of being useful, visible, active, relied on, and still not really met anywhere inside that. Children need things. Work needs things. The house needs things. Family needs things. Messages need things. But being needed is not the same as being held. Some evenings I realise I have spent the whole day responding without once feeling fully received. That is a very quiet ache. And a very real one.