I maintain that large cities are the loneliest of places. I arrived at this realization during my first short stay in Paris, so friendless I was in the swarming mass of people. I didn’t know the people who lived in our building, the people I crossed every morning, or the people who shopped in the same corner store. I didn’t know anyone, didn’t talk to anyone, and the great, bitter irony was that I was never physically alone. Even within the little cave of our apartment, the neighbors across the narrow street could see in (and made a point of looking). No, never alone; and yet so very alone. And that, I’m convinced, is the most painful of all loneliness.

Life in our small town is very different, for better and worse. I know all of my neighbors. Everyone on my street, I know their names and stories. There’s the divorced cellist, the retired professor who’s battling cancer, the displaced Californians, the daughter who inherited her mother’s home, and couldn’t bear to see it sold. There are more, and I consider many good friends. I like this. I like the feeling that we belong here, that we are part of a community. Belonging is essential to our humanity.

I don’t appreciate everything about life here. I don’t, for instance, like doing my shopping, and inevitably bumping into someone I don’t want to talk to. Like an annoying former coworker, or the high school dropout, or the mother of a classmate I hated. But I have a social obligation to make small talk, even though ignoring such persons would better suit me. I’ve become adept at not noticing who is around me when I shop, and avoiding eye contact. I suppose this classifies me as a snob. It is perhaps true.

Perhaps the most difficult part of living here is that each personal tragedy hits so very close to home. Earlier in the month, I learned of the death of a woman who attended the hospital childbirth classes with us two years ago – a class of only 6 couples. She had dark, wispy hair and a joking personality. Her name was Beth, and hers was a pregnancy fraught with complications. She delivered her son at 34 weeks, but both seemed in good condition – we, the class, were able to visit. I genuinely liked her – she worked in the hospital lab, and I always requested her when Lou needed blood samples taken to monitor his prolonged newborn jaundice. She had a gentle, concerned manner, and I knew she sincerely wanted to cause him as little pain as possible. Now she is gone, and her little boy, the same age as mine, will never know his mother. It is more than I can stand to imagine.

Tonight, my grandma told me that someone I went to school with very recently lost an infant son to SIDS. The baby’s grandmother was the teacher of our childbirth class. I can’t tell you how many people I know, people that I share a history with in one way or another, that have lost babies. When you live in a large city, you don’t hear of these things. You don’t know what becomes of the people you went to high school with. You don’t know what kind of heartbreak your neighbor downstairs is living. Here, it all seems so very near. Here, it is hard to take health and happiness for granted. A little boy just lost his devoted mother. It could have been my family.

And though I say this is difficult, it does not mean I would prefer not to know. Life is temporary, unstable, and uncertain - I believe it best that we not hide from this truth, unsettling though it is. Certainly, I cling desperately to the life and loved ones I have. Certainly, I fear acknowledging the ephemeral nature of life. Yet I think acknowledging it changes the way I live – both my priorities and my hopes for the future.

So maybe I am meant to be here, now.

Sorry to hear all the sad news.

And yeah, I would agree with you that big cities can be lonely places -- a lot depends on the culture of the place.