Rainy days and Mondays

What is it about this place that highlights my aloneness in such blatant and uncomfortable ways? I've always considered myself to be a bit of a loner. Though I enjoy the company of friends and family, I highly value my privacy, and need to have a quiet place to retreat to when interactions become overwhelming. A room, an activity, or even just the quiet space in my own mind - time alone has always been essential to my emotional wellbeing. So why is it that here, in this place of beautiful solitude, surrounded by the majesty of nature devoid of humanity, I am so lonely I can hardly cope? What does it say about me that I need my solitude to be punctuated by the neighbor's dog barking, a car driving by, or a housemate puttering in the next room?

The chickens give me some small relief, at least. Their gentle clucking and occasional spats feel like the barely heard chatter of aunts in the kitchen, bickering over the best way to bake a pie. But caring for Junebug increases my feeling of being apart from the world. She is not yet old enough to be a real person with whom real conversation can take place. She is my love, my sweetest love, but as yet is a bundle of needs and cries and tasks to be done. Years from now I hope she and I will sit down for tea and the sharing of our deepest selves, but for now our morning ritual of Cheerios (her) and coffee (me) is less than satisfying on an emotional level.

Where is the balance in a life like this? I can turn on the radio for a human voice, but the voices never ask me about my day, or offer a shoulder when I need to cry. I could call someone, but battery power is as precious as their time, and I hate to waste either on my trifling need for company. I could walk to town, but it is miles away, and Junebug's need for the comfort of home trumps my need to watch the locals tramp through the gas station market, going about their business with not a friendly glance for the blue-haired queer boy in the corner.

Was this part of my homesteading dream? Was it in the package all along, and I studiously ignored it in the hope that I would find a community waiting with open and accepting arms? Where is there to go from here but back to my window, coffee in hand, lips silent, chickens clucking softly in the yard with no idea that I am gazing at them with open envy.