It’s that moment after everyone is gone, all your friends, new and old, who volunteered to help you unload your moving container (and forget what they say about two men and a truck; four women and a dolly can “git ‘er done” in two-and-a-half hours), but in that moment after they are all gone and you’re sitting on the edge of your favorite floral chair because that’s all the space available and you are grateful for the help and you don’t know where you would be if not for them, but in that moment, you realize what loneliness truly is.
Gwenette Gaddis is a writer with roots in the South and the Pacific Northwest. She is working on a novel and a collection of personal essays.