A Love Letter From Me to You
From what felt like the longest month of the year to the shortest… I hope you are thriving! Since we’re in Valentine’s month, it seemed fitting that the theme of this newsletter is love. I’ve been thinking about loneliness, not only because it’s cold and dark, I’m in a new city and still finding my social footing here, but also because I recently came across some data from the Campaign to End Loneliness. What drew my attention about the study was that women were found to be more prone to be chronically lonely than men. The male “loneliness epidemic” gets a lot of airtime so I was surprised to learn that women suffer more from loneliness and can tend to internalize it or carry shame around it more than men do. We also have a different concept of friends than our male counterparts - we look for people with whom we can feel seen and share our inner worlds, rather than simply people with whom to share activities.
As women, we are always doing a lot. This can erode the time and energy we have to find like-minded friends to connect with deeply. This got me thinking about the fact that some of my dearest friends are not in the same city or even the same country as me right now. Coincidentally, the idea of long distance friendship dovetails with an exhibition I went to check out in London this weekend in the National Archives - a collection of historic love letters. Many letters displayed were romantic in nature but amongst those there were letters expressing platonic love and kinship. Sharing our inner worlds doesn’t always have to happen face to face. The last time I was visiting with my mother-in-law she pulled out a letter from her dear friend Carol who she has been writing to for 50 years and rarely sees face to face.
If you like, you can think of this newsletter as a love letter from me to you! I love knowing that many of you will read this and I’m thinking about you as I write it. If you want a wellbeing pick-me-up in February, think of someone in your life who would love to hear from you today. Think of sending them a letter, or maybe even just a card. February is a cold and dark month for lots of us and this is a way of connecting without getting out of your nap socks.