Power outage, Loneliness & Dogs

So a power outage just occurred and those rarely happen where i live so it took me by surprise. But the silence that it brought with it did leave my mind free to wander and start thinking about loneliness.

Loneliness is still something many don't talk about. I know i never do but it is something that is on my mind daily. I know a part of this is because i keep thinking back 20 years and how i imagined my life would be and where i stand now is definitely not how i expected things to turn out. And i know life never turns out the way anyone planned but my brain seems to forget that frequently.

I have tried researching different hobbies and activities that are available where i live that i might give a try. But the first hurdle is finding something that even remotely interests me, and secondly there really is not too many options available here. I live in a town with less than ten thousand residents and the vast majority of the them are closer to retirement age.

Currently I'm thinking of getting a dog again since dogs are something i always have had around me growing up and it's almost ten years now since i lost mine to cancer and due to my work,travel and personal health issues there never was a right time. 

I do have a few friends that i talk to on occasion but my hesitation with them is when i keep repeatedly offering that i can accommodate their schedule as to when to visit or get together it's almost never a good time, no matter how much in advance i ask. And my issue is not that they have their own lives but that no one gets back to me at any point with another option or invitation to get together at a later time. Nor offer to pay me a visit. It can go a few months with silence, then i ask/offer again...and yeah.

Also being dipping my toes in trying to reconnect with a few friends that i were close with as a teenager/early twenties but that is challenging since both interests and way of life are so different between us so seeing a few of them from time to time and talking with them the discussion always stalls quite quickly after the obligatory pleasantries that people go through after seeing someone you used to be close with but now are just friendly with and bump into every few months or so. 

Anyway, maybe now that i have switched to working from home the time could be right to find a dog. My previous dog was a mix between bordercollie, collie and groendal so to say that she was intelligent and trainable is a understatement so would definitely be open to finding something with a similar background this time around.

Openly admitting that i'm lonely is terrifying because on some level i'm afraid that i'll be judged for it. There is some stigma connected to it even today, even though in recent years there seems to have been quite a explosion in loneliness all over. According to some (1,2) we are in a loneliness epidemic. 

Now i have lost my train of thought. So that will have to be all, at least for now. So i'll just remind myself to put one foot in front of the other because so far my experience has been life is beautiful with all it's warts and bumps.