u/EmergencyEvening915

For the most part, I am okay with being a loner and keeping to myself. I am an extreme introvert and have come to accept that. Today, though, it's hitting me quite hard. I just got back from a week long trip with a tour group. The group was filled with fun and lovely people from all over the world. Of course I craved some alone time while I was traveling with them, and by the end, I was looking forward to getting back home. However, now that I'm here, I just feel incredibly lonely, depressed, and empty. Almost everyone else in the group talked about their wonderful families and friends, and their rich lives waiting for them at home. I thought, "cool, totally different from my life, but that's okay!" But now I keep thinking about how they are all returning to those loving families and rich lives, whereas I just returned to my empty old apartment, with no one even to talk to about my experiences over the past week. Right now, I would love to have someone here with me so I could tell them all about it and show them the photos. But there's no one. Makes me want to cry.

Maybe this is my wake-up call that I need to make some changes in my life.

Not sure where to post this so it's going here.

I am going through the last parts of the court process of having my deceased ex's house and property pass onto me. He died without a will, and the property automatically went to his father, who now wants it to go to me, since we were very close when he was alive. This is not a fast process, and so the property has sat vacant for quite a few months now. I check on it every once in a while to make sure all is okay. Today I did another check and saw that two squatters had moved in. And not just "unroll a sleeping bag on the floor" kind of move in. They were taking out all the previous furniture and putting in their own, installing sunshades, etc. So basically turning it into their home.

When I saw this, I was hit by a wave of anger and sadness that took over my entire thinking process. Anger at their shocking audacity, and sadness at the fact that they were swallowing up this memory-laden house before I had even cleared it out. As if the entire backstory of why it was sitting vacant in the first place just went up in flames (I know it's not realistic at all to expect them to know the backstory, but this is what I was thinking at the time). I admit it led me to act like a complete idiot and I ended up confronting them face-to-face.

I told them that they had to leave immediately, and I didn't say it nicely either. Then I carried around this self-righteous indignation for the remainder of the day, fuming at them in my head. I spent hours researching how to get squatters off of your property, and was fully prepared to go through the legal process. I truly wanted to throw the whole damn book at them.

Well, I drove by the property again this evening, just out of curiosity...and they were gone. Hooray! Right? But honestly all I felt was this completely unexpected sense of guilt and a different kind of sadness. It was a sadness for them this time. Like, these 2 guys who clearly were struggling in life had packed all their stuff back up and then once again had to go find another place to sleep without a roof over their heads, and I was now responsible and it was all my fault. They were nice about it and had promptly respected my wishes, whereas I had been somewhat of a bitch. I had to take a long car ride afterwards, just to get my head and emotions figured it. I have to say, it's really messed me up, and I have no idea why. Even now, I am sitting here wondering where they chose to go when they left.

Am I really that soft, to be affected this much by it? Why do I feel so sad? I'm just trying to understand. It's got me pretty down.