04/03/2026
I'm sharing this because I feel this so deeply. I'm going to be really honest here - I still struggle with walking into somewhere by myself. We really do live in a couple's world, and to be honest, sometimes church is one of the hardest places to walk into. I have heard this from countless widows and other ladies who are single. I have compared it to walking into the middle school lunch room again, with the thoughts of "Where do I sit? Where do I belong?"
This is a long article, but well worth the read. I encourage you to look around for those who are by themselves and offer to go in with them, wherever that may be. And if you are one walking in by yourself, look around for others who might be feeling the same way as you. We are not alone - sometimes we just have to find one other person, and then sometimes we find a whole tribe.💚
I own three decent dresses, two pairs of comfortable heels, and one sentence that changed my whole life.
“I don’t want to walk in alone.”
The first time I said it out loud, I was sitting in my car outside a church fellowship hall with my hand on the steering wheel and my heart acting ridiculous.
It was a women’s breakfast fundraiser for the local shelter. Nothing scary. Nothing dramatic. Just coffee, muffins, folding tables, and a room full of people in cardigans.
But it was my first event after my divorce where I couldn’t hide behind being part of a couple.
For twenty-two years, I had walked into rooms beside someone else. Weddings. School events. Holiday parties. Neighborhood cookouts. Even when things weren’t perfect, I was part of a pair. Then suddenly I wasn’t.
And I was shocked by how hard that felt.
Not being alone exactly.
Walking in alone.
That morning I had almost turned the car around three times. I had lipstick on, earrings in, banana bread in a foil pan on the passenger seat, and absolutely no desire to step into that room by myself.
Then somebody tapped on my window.
It was a woman about my age in a green sweater, holding a store-bought fruit tray.
She smiled and said, “Are you going in?”
I rolled the window down and before I could stop myself, I said the truth.
“I want to. I just don’t want to walk in alone.”
She laughed like I had said something she understood in her bones.
“Oh, thank goodness,” she said. “Me neither.”
So we walked in together.
That was it.
That was the whole beginning.
Her name was Paula. She had been widowed three years earlier and said she still hated entering crowded rooms by herself. We sat together, shared the jam packets, and whispered little comments during the speaker’s microphone issues like middle schoolers.
At the end, she said, “Next time, text me.”
So we exchanged numbers.
A month later, I texted her before a school art show my niece was in.
“Any chance you want to be my fake brave person tonight?”
She texted back, “Only if you’ll be mine for a retirement dinner next week.”
Done.
After that, we had a system.
We parked near each other.
We waited by the door.
We walked in together.
Sometimes we stayed together all night.
Sometimes we hugged hello, found our own people, and met back at the parking lot after.
But that tiny little bridge between the car and the room mattered more than I can explain.
Because once you’re inside, most things are fine.
It’s the walking in that gets you.
A few months later, Paula added her neighbor Denise to our text chain before a school auction.
Denise had been divorced for years and admitted she once skipped a perfectly good event because she sat in the parking lot too long and finally went home.
Then my friend Lauren got added before an office party.
Then my sister before a fundraiser.
Then a mom from church before her daughter’s choir concert because her husband traveled and she hated standing by herself in crowded lobbies pretending to check her phone.
The group text ended up with a silly name because Denise was in charge of naming things.
She called it: “Don’t Let Me Go In Alone.”
And honestly, that was exactly what it was.
The messages were never dramatic.
“Anybody at the library gala tonight?”
“I’m outside the middle school in a blue coat.”
“Running late. Save me a seat if you can.”
“Can someone walk in with me to open house? I’m in the red SUV and I already regret wearing heels.”
We laughed a lot.
But under the jokes, something real was happening.
Women were telling the truth.
Not big truth all the time.
Just regular truth.
I feel awkward.
I feel nervous.
I don’t want to stand there by myself.
I don’t want to act like I’m fine if I’m not.
And once one woman says it, another woman usually says, “Same.”
That’s the magic, I think.
Not that we solve everything.
We just stop pretending we don’t need each other.
By spring, our little text chain had turned into its own kind of quiet safety net.
I walked into a kindergarten performance with a grandmother whose daughter got stuck at work.
Paula met Lauren outside a hospital waiting room before a routine procedure because no one should sit under those lights alone if they don’t have to.
Denise stood with me at a wedding where I only knew the bride’s mother and did not want to spend ten minutes pretending to admire centerpieces.
My sister walked in with a young teacher from our church to her first school banquet because she was new in town and didn’t know where to stand.
The thing I loved most was how fast women understood the assignment.
No one made it weird.
No one asked for a full explanation.
No one acted like somebody was needy or dramatic.
You just sent the text.
Somebody answered.
You walked in together.
One evening in October, I was meeting the group outside a breast cancer fundraiser downtown. I got there first and stood by the entrance watching women climb out of cars.
Some came laughing.
Some came smoothing their dresses.
Some came with that familiar look on their faces, the one that says, I can do this, I just wish someone would stand beside me for the first thirty seconds.
And one by one, they found each other.
A hand wave.
A smile.
A quick hug.
“Are you here for the group?”
“Yep, me too.”
I stood there and had the strangest, sweetest feeling.
We were not just helping each other get through events.
We were giving each other back a version of ourselves.
The woman who says yes.
The woman who shows up.
The woman who doesn’t miss the recital, the luncheon, the community dinner, the baby shower, the work event, the night out, just because the doorway feels hard.
Then came the surprise I never saw coming.
In December, our town held a volunteer appreciation dinner. I was only going because Paula insisted. She said, “There will be cake and tiny quiches. We are going.”
I almost skipped it anyway.
Work had been exhausting.
My hair was doing something deeply unhelpful.
And I had one of those moods where staying home in pajamas sounded wiser than all social choices.
But I got dressed.
I drove there.
And then I sat in my car looking at the building.
Same old feeling.
Still there.
So I picked up my phone to send the usual text.
“Anybody here yet? I don’t want to walk in alone.”
Before I could hit send, somebody knocked on my window.
Then somebody else.
Then somebody else.
I looked up and there they were.
Paula in green.
Denise with her giant purse.
Lauren in a navy dress.
My sister.
The teacher from church.
The grandmother from the kindergarten show.
Even two women I only knew from the text thread and one school auction.
A whole little line of women standing outside my car smiling at me.
Paula pointed at my phone through the window and said, “You don’t get to send that text tonight.”
I opened the door and just stared at them.
“What are you all doing?”
Denise grinned. “Walking in with you, obviously.”
I laughed so hard I cried a little, which did not help my mascara, but at that point it was too late to care.
So we walked in together.
All of us.
And for the first time in a long time, I did not feel like a woman who had lost something.
I felt like a woman who had found her people.
Now the text thread is still active.
The name hasn’t changed.
Neither has the purpose.
Sometimes the bravest thing a woman does all week is put on decent shoes, get out of her car, and admit she does not want to cross that room by herself.
And sometimes the most loving thing another woman can say is just:
“I’m here. Wait for me.”
