I’m not sure how many people right now can say that they are comfortable in their loneliness. Thankfully, I have reached a point recently where I am alone a lot, and I love it.
I used to cherish my alone time because it was something I could barely ever get in long spans of time. Living with a roommate, being around friends all the time, and always being in class or work. These things limit the amount of access you have to yourself.
I am someone who needs alone time to process things. If I know I am reacting based on a knee-jerk emotional response, I know I need to be alone and decompress before I address the issue. I can identify when my emotions start to skyrocket, and I know how to bring them back down to Earth.
But this used to bother me.
With only recently having learned how to be immensely grateful for the excessive amounts of alone time I now have, most people probably notice me alone almost at all times of the day and think I have no social life. I do, I promise. It just doesn’t look like it used to.
As a senior in college, I can confidently say that my life has changed in ways I couldn’t even begin to describe since starting at Asbury as a freshman. My friends are different, my hobbies are (only slightly) changed, and my mindset and outlook on life have flipped around completely. Change can come from being alone as well as being surrounded. Mine came from being shoved into a room by myself and told to “stay” like a dog.
I realize as of late that being alone is not something we need to be scared of, and it has taken me more time than I would like to admit to figure that out.
Last week for class, I had to write an analysis of a poem of my choosing and “teach it” to the class—a class of 15 Literature students.
As a person who teaches little kids how to put marker caps on properly and how to keep their hands to themselves, teaching poetry to many literature students is extremely difficult.
The poem I chose mentions towards the end feeling “useless” while being denied love. It didn’t leave my thoughts.
I sometimes struggle with having this rope tied from romantic love to self-worth, and it’s not a very sturdy rope. This idea that sometimes we deem ourselves as “less than” if we don’t have someone in our lives to pour our love onto is so damaging, but we don’t even realize that we’re doing it half the time.
Being in this kind of mindset causes us to think that because we are alone, we are not capable or worthy of having someone care about us. It makes us begin to believe that there might be something wrong with us if there is a part of our minds that is scared of being lonely.
After recently having dealt with these emotions and coming to the conclusion that I simply don’t care anymore, I can confidently say this mentality has changed me. Refusing to care about things that don’t matter is my unhealthy way of being okay with being by myself a lot. And in return, all of this alone time has helped me better understand a lot about myself.
These things include: I love puzzles, I overthink everything that’s ever happened to me, and I’m terrible at finding ways to pass the time.
Being lonely and alone may have two different implications, but they have the same impact on us when viewed as “bad.” I am lonely, and that’s okay. I am also alone a lot, and that’s okay too. I grew tired of feeling like I wasn’t worth much because people did not constantly surround me. It took me a long time and a lot of tears to get here, but here I am.
That said, I want you to know that I don’t encourage this hermit-crab lifestyle. It is good, healthy, fun and nice to be surrounded by friends. But it’s okay if you’re not.
I think many more people struggle with this than would care to admit, and that’s okay too. You don’t have to have everything under control to understand something about yourself.
Don’t beat yourself up just because you eat in the caf by yourself a lot or because you have given up on the idea of being in a relationship. Things happen, and we all get through them.
If you’re one of those people reading this and feeling you would rather die than eat alone, just try it once. Literally, nobody cares. I think that’s something many of us struggle with: feeling like everyone is looking at us. Nobody. Cares. And neither do I.
That’s the great part about it.
