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96. The Lonely Gap
1 Playsin 11 hours
Have you ever looked around at your life and thought, "I didn't think I'd still be here?"
Not necessarily because your life is bad, but because it's different than you imagined.
In this episode of Wandering the Wild Mess, we talk through the emotional reality of what I'm calling "the lonely gap," the season between surviving a major life change and slowly building a life that feels like home again.
Whether you're navigating divorce, heartbreak, singleness, grief, a career change, or simply a life that hasn't unfolded the way you thought it would, this conversation is for anyone who's ever felt like they're waiting for the rest of their story to arrive.
This episode explores the difference between surviving and rebuilding, why gratitude and longing can exist at the same time, and how to keep building a life you love, even while you're waiting for what's next. Through the metaphor of rebuilding a house brick by brick, we unpack what it means to create a life that feels like home, even before every room is filled.
If you've ever felt behind, wondered why waiting can feel so lonely, or questioned whether you're the only one living in this in-between season, I hope this episode reminds you that you're not alone. You'll walk away with a new perspective on waiting, practical encouragement for rebuilding your life, and hope that the season you're in isn't the end of your story.
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Transcript
Understanding Distinct Forms of Grief
00:00:36
Heather Morgan
Can I admit something? I really don't think I'm grieving my divorce anymore. I think I'm grieving the life I thought I'd have by now.
00:00:49
Heather Morgan
And those are two completely different things. Because somewhere along the way, the heartbreak changed I'm not wishing I had my old life back.
00:01:01
Heather Morgan
Honestly, I love so much about the life I've built. But every once in a while, I catch myself thinking, I just didn't think I'd still be here.
00:01:12
Heather Morgan
Not here emotionally, here in this season, single, still building, waiting. i think there's this place after something ends that nobody really prepares you for.
Introduction to the Podcast's Purpose
00:01:25
Heather Morgan
and I've been calling it the lonely yeah
00:01:30
Heather Morgan
Welcome to Wandering the Wild Mess with Heather Morgan. I am so happy you're here. Now maybe your story isn't divorce.
00:01:44
Heather Morgan
Maybe something else didn't turn out the way you thought it would. Maybe you're looking around at your life thinking, this isn't bad. It's just different than I imagined.
00:01:54
Heather Morgan
And I think more people live there than we realize.
The Gap Between Expectations and Reality
00:01:58
Heather Morgan
There's so many of us thinking this could not be where I am in life at this point in time.
00:02:07
Heather Morgan
But yet it is. It feels like we're sitting in a gap waiting for the rest of our life to arrive, waiting for our life to look like we thought it should by now.
00:02:21
Heather Morgan
And it's so
00:02:24
Heather Morgan
overwhelming sometimes to think about being there.
Reflecting on Personal Growth
00:02:29
Heather Morgan
The other day I listened back clear back to episode nine of my podcast over two years ago and I had recorded it, you know, it was about a year after my divorce and the whole episode was basically me wondering if I'd be alone forever.
00:02:45
Heather Morgan
and knowing that I had a lot going on in that first year of divorce that didn't really make it so I prioritized you know, really finding any kind of connection.
00:02:58
Heather Morgan
But I'm listening to her and I don't even recognize that version of myself anymore. Truly. She's gone. She's grown so much. And back there, I was really like back then I was just trying to survive.
00:03:11
Heather Morgan
And today I'm trying to build. And those are completely different seasons. I think your survival mode season, you just have to give yourself grace
Transitioning from Survival to Rebuilding
00:03:19
Heather Morgan
and get through it. But then when you kind of really dust yourself off and realize, I've been rolling around in this mess and this rubble for so long, I've got to start rebuilding.
00:03:29
Heather Morgan
It's crazy because you really start filling that lonely gap so much more because you're no longer distracting yourself with the mess.
00:03:40
Heather Morgan
And the quiet is so loud. And I had this idea that I was picturing the other night while I was just wrestling with this. And it's like this house. And it keeps coming to mind. Like when something big ends in your life, it's like the house you thought you'd spend your life in suddenly falls apart.
00:04:01
Heather Morgan
And that I once talked early in the episodes about my divorce a little bit feeling like a house that you knew just had to crumble. And so once it crumbles, at first, you're not really rebuilding anything. You're kind of just standing there and you're looking at the pieces And you're rummaging through it, picking a few things up here and there, wondering what the heck happened and how this is your life.
00:04:28
Heather Morgan
Just a pile of rubbles and you don't even know how to begin again. you'll wonder You're wondering like if I'll ever feel at home again because everything that was your home is now gone.
00:04:39
Heather Morgan
Like I've talked about before, like the identity death, it goes down, it just crumbles. But honestly, once you stop rolling around and rummaging in the mess and actually give yourself time to say it's time to rebuild this house because I want a new life and I i want beautiful things to be in this home with me. I want my life to look different.
Challenges and Fulfillment in Rebuilding Life
00:05:05
Heather Morgan
There's a season of rebuilding, but it's it's exhausting. You almost feel like I don't want another blueprint and a fresh start. And I just want the house i already had. And not that i really, i mean, there was times early that I thought I just wanted my old life back. And I talked about that, but I think it's like, you're just so exhausted about the survival mode after the breakdown that you aren't ready to rebuild. And I saw that even in the way that I slowly rebuilt my own home. Once I moved to Tennessee,
00:05:40
Heather Morgan
But once you start giving yourself the space to rebuild and you decide to pick it up, it's like brick by brick, truly.
00:05:52
Heather Morgan
It's one thing and then another and then you make new friends and you find new hobbies and you start taking care of yourself differently and you're trying to create all these new routines when you finally decide what you want your house to look like.
00:06:09
Heather Morgan
Because I think while I was rummaging through the mess, gosh, it was great for a lot of reasons. Because i didn't feel the lonely gap so loud.
00:06:22
Heather Morgan
I did, but it was different. Because I was always finding a way to distract myself from its truth. I was always finding another thing to do, another place to travel, another person to text, another...
00:06:38
Heather Morgan
whatever it was, another night out in Nashville to say, okay, it's not that bad. This is so fun. And it was, but it wasn't sustainable. It wasn't the house I wanted to buy. It was like, it kind of felt like the the fun apartment that you had because of the amenities and location, but not really the dream house you wanted to live in forever.
00:07:02
Heather Morgan
And I think some of us stay in that spot for a while because
00:07:09
Heather Morgan
it's hard to actually make big decisions about your life that for a time are a little, need I say, i hate to say it, but boring.
00:07:21
Heather Morgan
Boring. And it's not that your life is boring. It's just you were in the mess. You were in the chaos. You were in the constant. And now it's like, okay, I've just got to pick up a brick at a time.
00:07:34
Heather Morgan
And that's not fun.
00:07:36
Heather Morgan
But once you start doing it, you slowly become someone who you actually like because you realize who you are.
00:07:50
Heather Morgan
And then that new house, that new bricks that you're putting together start making something of your life.
00:07:59
Heather Morgan
But the crazy part is is that some of us, many of us, are rebuilding that house by ourselves, brick by brick.
00:08:12
Heather Morgan
And we may have some friends there and built some community, but at the end of the day,
00:08:17
Heather Morgan
when you know what sharing a life feels like and now still three and a half years later you're doing it all by yourself there is an ache that is so loud in your soul
00:08:34
Heather Morgan
in certain moments where you're like wow I don't hate my life. I love it. It's beautiful. And I'm building it beautifully. And I am so grateful.
00:08:48
Heather Morgan
But I'm not sharing it with anyone.
00:08:51
Heather Morgan
And that is a hard truth.
00:08:55
Heather Morgan
Because after you start rebuilding, you're just so excited to have someone to share it with. Because you did all this work to create a new life for yourself.
Desire for Authentic Connections and Self-Growth
00:09:09
Heather Morgan
After everything crumbled, you found a way.
00:09:14
Heather Morgan
And when you really like your life and then almost in the same breath, you're like, I just wish I had someone to share parts of it with. And those two things can...
00:09:26
Heather Morgan
be true at the same time, exist at the same time. and it's And it's really almost like I'm so proud of myself. You get so excited. You're like, I love my life. I love that I don't have to answer to anybody. like not that that's so awful, but like I can do what I want. There's a freedom in that, right? You don't have to check with someone to make sure you know we don't have plans. You're just like, I can make decisions and I just get to move through the world how I want.
00:09:52
Heather Morgan
But then you're like, but then I have nothing shared. I have no one to share this exciting news. You know, again, there's a, a song, um, too far gone by Emma Smalley. And it's, um, it's blowing up. She's doing great. And I love to hear it because that song really represents exactly what it feels like.
00:10:14
Heather Morgan
You're doing life by yourself and it's, it's, the lonely doesn't feel lonely like it should. like I'm not lonely enough to entertain people that aren't meant for me anymore like I did at the beginning.
00:10:34
Heather Morgan
So that makes it even more lonely because you're not giving your energy to people that you just know are not meant to be in your life and not meaning anything more than it's just like
00:10:46
Heather Morgan
I feel weird even saying this, but it's so true. Like, I think people can relate. It's like, I don't want to date anybody. I want to date my husband.
00:10:59
Heather Morgan
And I think a lot of people feel that they're like, no, I want my person. i don't want a whole bunch of other random people that aren't going to mean anything. and And it's not that they don't mean anything. I think two things can be true too. You can want that, but also know that sometimes...
00:11:16
Heather Morgan
We have to see things in other people that aren't our person to help us go through lessons or learn what we do and do not want. And there's a whole process to it.
00:11:28
Heather Morgan
But my desire to just have another lesson while dating someone is so not at all what I want to do.
00:11:42
Heather Morgan
And so that makes it...
00:11:47
Heather Morgan
the lomas and the loneliness even louder. Because I think I've told you all, it's been a year and a half I've went on one single date. And i think a lot of us just either... I think dating sometimes now I could see it just being a distraction because you're just with so many people and it feels like you're not that lonely because they're there. But then...
00:12:09
Heather Morgan
Even if there's, I could see that myself, even if I was to go on a date with someone I wasn't that interested in it would still feel lonely because I'm like, well, this isn't them. This isn't the person that I'm going to like tell my whole exciting news of my life to.
00:12:25
Heather Morgan
Like right now, if if I have good news, God's the first one to know. That's who I have. That's it. Because i it's me. And i know that's hard for a lot of people right now.
00:12:40
Heather Morgan
where they've left the things from their life that they no longer serve them that aren't good for them, whether it's the partner, the job, the relationship with someone that you knew wasn't right. And then you're just sitting there like, but how long will I be alone? How long do I wait in this?
00:12:58
Heather Morgan
And the lonely gap is loud because you're trying to plan a life with just you. Like I think about so many of the things that I'm doing and it's like, I remember before buying concert tickets thinking, well, maybe ah I'll meet someone by then.
00:13:14
Heather Morgan
So maybe I should get two.
00:13:17
Heather Morgan
And now I've gotten to the point where, okay, kid, it's just you.
00:13:22
Heather Morgan
and
00:13:24
Heather Morgan
Gosh, that's kind of, it's sad, but it's just the truth of the matter. That sometimes we just have to learn how to do life by ourselves because we cannot control when, how, and if we'll meet someone.
00:13:43
Heather Morgan
And I think it gets overwhelming sometimes to think about because you're like, I mean, there's no way that I could be doing this for years longer.
00:13:54
Heather Morgan
But then you're like, but looking back, I literally never would have thought at episode nine that here I am three and a half years later still alone.
00:14:06
Heather Morgan
And that tells you that you don't know.
00:14:11
Heather Morgan
And I don't think I can solve for us all how we get through this lonely gap.
00:14:17
Heather Morgan
But I want you to know you're not alone in feeling it.
Becoming Who You Want to Be and Attracting the Right Partner
00:14:21
Heather Morgan
I want you to know that it is an opportunity for you to build yourself into exactly who you want to be. And i'm i'm that is exactly what I'm working so hard to do, not not for just my future partner, but for myself, for who I want to become.
00:14:42
Heather Morgan
And this season has just have to be me trusting that the closer I get to the person and partner I want to be,
00:14:51
Heather Morgan
the higher probability of me meeting and attracting that same type of person into my life to share it with.
00:15:00
Heather Morgan
And I think sometimes we romanticize like doing life on our own without admitting that there is an ache in the loneliness because we are meant for a human connection. We are meant to be with people. But I do think one little...
00:15:18
Heather Morgan
piece of advice I'll give, even though here I am still, is that I do think the more you become who you feel like you want to be, what aligns, you're doing the things that feel right for you instead of just distracting in your life.
00:15:33
Heather Morgan
There's a different you that develops this different confidence in who you are that will attract the right person to your life.
00:15:44
Heather Morgan
When you can move through the world on your own, you're already setting yourself up to be that good partner. But it's crazy because I go back and forth and I'm like, I don't want to be building my whole life just for a partner.
00:16:01
Heather Morgan
And I know that I'm not. So I hope I'm not conveying that and saying that that's what you should do. But I think there's two things. like We shouldn't build our whole life around someone becoming our partner, but we also can't like isolate ourselves so much from even allowing potential partners to find us.
00:16:25
Heather Morgan
And it's just that sweet spot in the middle that's where hopefully it all flows together. And won't it be crazy one day if I can tell you that I found that? That would be wild.
00:16:41
Heather Morgan
Wild.
00:16:43
Heather Morgan
And I hope you know in this whole lonely gap that we're sitting in that it's okay to just cry it out sometimes, feel the feelings.
00:16:56
Heather Morgan
Because so much of our lives are moments of us realizing that we could not five-year plan it out like we thought. Because life just has different plans sometimes.
00:17:12
Heather Morgan
And we just have to learn to be all right with that. I literally it was recording something the other day and ah i was overwhelmed, just felt like I had 12 tabs open. And I was sitting in my car and I just, as I'm recording and I'm talking, I see this squirrel.
00:17:29
Heather Morgan
And it was just so cute. And I was like, oh, there's a squirrel in the tree. i was like, the squirrel's not worrying about what it's doing. It doesn't care about its five-year plan. It's just jumping happy from the tree.
00:17:44
Heather Morgan
and I thought, I want to be more like the squirrel.
00:17:47
Heather Morgan
just in the present moment. And I know I've talked about that before, but i'm when you're in the lonely gap, staying in the now is the best way to be because the lonely gap feels like trying to think if I'm on my own for another five years, there is no way. I feel like for someone sitting in the lonely gap and actually feeling it, that feels like giving yourself an anxiety attack because I've been there.
Encouragement and Self-Worth
00:18:14
Heather Morgan
But just like when I was first post-divorce and I thought I cannot be alone forever, well, I survived three and a half years of it.
00:18:23
Heather Morgan
And so wherever you are in yours, you will too.
00:18:27
Heather Morgan
So I just want to remind you and end with, if you're in that season, that lonely gap, I just want you to know I see you.
00:18:39
Heather Morgan
And maybe you're not fully grieving anymore. Maybe you're just feeling this painful waiting. Maybe you've done so much rebuilding that people assume you've arrived.
00:18:52
Heather Morgan
But deep down, you're still hoping for a few more rooms in your story to be filled. I want you to keep building anyways.
00:19:04
Heather Morgan
Because whether someone walks through that door and next month,
00:19:08
Heather Morgan
or a few years from now, you'll never regret becoming someone who feels at home in the life you've built.
00:19:22
Heather Morgan
This was Wandering the Wild Mess with Heather Morgan. You matter.