I miss being somebody’s emotional home

Dear Delyara, Not the practical person. Not the useful one. The emotional one. The one someone turns to first, returns to, settles with, reaches for before they’ve even finished understanding what they feel themselves. I think there is such a deep human steadiness in being that for another person, and I have been feeling the absence of it more and more as I get older. That doesn’t mean my life is empty. It means some kinds of closeness are missing, and the missing is very specific. I think adult loneliness often hides there — not in the lack of people, but in the lack of being deeply central in anyone’s inner world. That ache has stayed with me longer than I admit out loud.