What is the secret to being alone?
There are many people I know who have lived their whole lives alone, and manage to fill their days so completely that you wonder when they sleep.
I am not one of them. I like being alone, sometimes. But on other times it seems like a yawning void, and I simply do not have the skills necessary to fill it.
Last night, I was completely, 100% alone. Well, I’ve been alone all week off and on during the day, but last night the house felt empty because I was the only living creature breathing in its rooms. Nathan has been gone since Tuesday, off to his summer job in Iowa with the dogs. Sarah was invited to a friend’s house for a sleepover. I was alone, with my books, my television, my plants, and the silence of frogs croaking, crickets chirping, the house creaking and the drone of the nearby freeway.
I was completely alone.
I woke this morning to the ringing of my phone, as Sarah called to ask if I would drop off a bathing suit so she could spend the day with her friends doing something that involved water.
So I’ve spent the whole morning alone. Did I spend it wisely? Of course not. I ended up watching Charmed episodes on DVD while playing a video game all morning.
I’m not going to lie, it’s been kind of fun.
But, the experience of being alone right now is making me think about how difficult it is to learn to be alone. I’ve written about alone vs. lonely before, and loneliness has been a recurring theme lately throughout my blog posts. But this post isn’t really about feeling lonely.
It’s about the art of being alone.
How does one be alone and feel fulfilled? I look back on the ways I have filled my time in the past, during periods where I lived alone, and I realize I have never truly mastered the art of being alone.
Here are some of the things I have done when I am alone. Not all of them are good for me.
- Read
- Cross-stitch
- Sing
- Write
- Art
- Crafts
- Walk
- Exercise
- Daydream
- Sleep
- Study languages
- Explore
- Eat
- Play computer games
- Watching tv
- drink (alcohol)–very rarely, and usually for a reason
- cry
- talk to myself
- chat on Facebook
- Clean up messes
- Organize
- Blog
While some of these things are good, I tend to spend more time on the time suck ones, like Facebook, computer games and television, and then get angry at myself for wasting time. So perhaps I should add to the list that I spend a lot of alone time being really hard on myself.
I don’t want to do that anymore.
I am looking toward more alone time this summer. While Sarah and I will be joining Nathan, I don’t really have a place or a purpose there. I try to help where I’m needed. but that help isn’t always welcomed. Sarah enjoys the freedom of the theatre lot, and entertains herself for most of the time. Nathan thrives on the work. I am alone.
I want to fill my alone time with substance. I want to work toward the life I dream, where I produce quality work in my alone time, and I spend quality time with other when I am not alone. But to do that I need to master the art of being alone.
How do I do this? How do you spend your time alone?
Meanwhile, as I wrote this, my alone time ended, and now I am dealing with a slightly grumpy, tired 9-year-old. Let the chaos begin.
May 27, 2012 @ 14:46:56
I sing out loud. And then I go outside and do it louder.
Hang in there. That inner peace comes at the price of letting go of worry and I’ve yet to master it myself so you’ve plenty of company.
May 27, 2012 @ 14:49:41
Sounds fun. I need to sing more. Inner peace . . . letting go of worry . . . I can dream.
May 27, 2012 @ 15:04:24
I think I was 33 or 34 when I finally learned how to enjoy being alone. The trick for me, and I don’t know if it will help you, was to accept the various seasons life throws at us. I own a business, and I really started writing in earnest when the economy tanked and my business slumped with it, leaving me a lot of dead time in a day. After months of worry and hand wringing, I finally told myself that I might never have this much down time again, that I might really long for it in a busy season, that I should embrace it and enjoy it and not wish it away.
I don’t know how to tell someone else to do that, because it really required significant effort to alter my own thinking. It didn’t happen at once, and I sometimes still feel myself slipping into those habits. That’s when I go for a long walk, and that is usually the best thing for me.
May 27, 2012 @ 15:10:41
i think it just helps to know that someone I admire has gone through it and survived.
May 27, 2012 @ 15:22:09
Aloneness is simply the absence of others. Solitude is being fully with oneself. There is an art to solitude. It is nurturning and life-affirming. And I think it’s something we are less and less able to accomplish. We have so many distractions to solitude, so many ways we allow the world to bombard us. And as wonderful as blogging is in many ways, it is, by it’s very nature, another form of bombardment. Journaling (or any form of private writing), on the other hand, allows us to take the journey inward. Art, meditation, yoga, walking, can be several other forms of personal journey. I don’t think it’s so much what you do as choosing what speaks to you and allows you to get to that clear space inside in which all the answers you are looking for can be found.
May 27, 2012 @ 16:32:39
I’ve found that how well I use my alone time depends extraordinarily on how much of it I have. Counter-intuitively the more I have the more likely I am to spend it in ways that are caring and enriching for me. I suppose it has to do with not wanting to be interrupted. I also think practice at solitude helps. Enjoy your alone time this summer.
May 27, 2012 @ 17:06:12
I liked reading your thoughts here, Lisa. This issue is a deeply spiritual one, I think. Many of us–me included–have deep unconscious fears of emptiness. (Some spiritual folks say that everyone has these.) So much of what we do is not a move toward creativity but a move away from our fear of emptiness. As I’ve gone deeper inside, I am truly enjoying being alone almost as much as being with other people. So often choose to do things alone. But, then, my husband is around a lot, so maybe I’m fooling myself. So many things to ponder here. Thank you!
May 28, 2012 @ 08:54:14
Perhaps it is emptiness I fear more than being alone. The fear of living an empty life, that touches nobody and serves no purpose.
May 27, 2012 @ 19:41:51
Lisa, this blog was provocative, as always. I confess, I live alone and love it. But I think this is because I have been so busy for so much of my life that having time and space to myself seems like a real gift. With no one else impinging on my attention, I can truly enjoy the world surrounding me. In fact, I prefer traveling alone to traveling with others for that very reason; the observable world becomes much more intense. I did a brief, slightly humorous pieces (a Melville take-off) on that theme in one of my blogs: http://solowomenathomeandabroad.blogspot.com/2011/01/presence-of-place.html
Also, I make a lists of all the things I want to do in any given day/week/year, and then try to do them. If I finish half of what I want to do, I’m happy.
Finally, I’ve cultivated the habit of gratitude. I go into that journey in a book published recently:http://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/jv-simson/god-says-i-am/
You can browse pages on Amazon to see if it would interest you. If you read it, I’d love your feedback.
May 28, 2012 @ 08:53:23
Joanne,
I always thought I would live alone, and wouldn’t mind it because my life would be so busy. I don’t usually mind it, actually, and sometimes I wish for it, but I’m just stuck in the between unknown right now. I will definitely check out your post and book on my next time alone (aka tomorrow when Sarah is back in school).
Jun 01, 2012 @ 09:14:06
Joanne,
I just wanted to let you know that I bought and have started reading your book. I have gotten distracted (no fault of the book, purely life interruptions) but I loved the first chapter and can’t wait to read more.
May 27, 2012 @ 20:58:37
one of my friends just told me yesterday that she read 50 Shades of Grey while alone…
May 28, 2012 @ 08:51:11
I looked into buying it for my kindle the other day, but it really did not interest me.
May 28, 2012 @ 10:01:57
That’s what I thought too, and I haven’t read it yet, but my girlfriend always goes out, so for her to cancel plans…
May 27, 2012 @ 22:44:26
I live alone, and if I don’t do at least one thing creative each day, then I am very downcast about myself. Reading, drawing, writing – there must be some movement towards an ultimate goal.
I cry too – most always a product of thinking too much. A side effect of being alone with your mind.
That is about being alone inside. But to be alone outside – free to stop and wonder, to stop and witness Nature unspooling her work all around you…it is a joy.
May 28, 2012 @ 08:50:41
Being alone inside is the hardest part, but being alone outside is wonderful. I also think too much, as is obvious from this post.
May 27, 2012 @ 23:50:46
I do not allow myself to be hard on myself about my alone time. I too would like to be useful & creative when I am alone, but I don’t beat myself up about spending some time playing games or watching TV or napping. Just because I am alone doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy myself or have fun! Sometimes it’s when you are alone when you do something special for yourself like have a special treat or do something you wouldn’t normally do. I seize the opportunity & then try to get back on the straight & narrow when I’m no longer alone.
May 28, 2012 @ 08:49:53
I am way too hard on myself in general. I know that, but I am trying to be kinder.
May 28, 2012 @ 04:46:14
Great post, Lisa. I especially love Renee’s comment above about the difference between solitude and being alone. I’ve spent lots of time alone in recent years when Sara was working abroad and had to stay home in the US for some reason–sometimes months at a time. However, we have been together nearly constantly in the past year. Actually, I’ve enjoyed it. Generally, however, I don’t mind being alone, but not without my dogs!
Hugs,
kathy
May 28, 2012 @ 08:48:18
I think the lack of dogs is what has thrown me the most this week. They drive me crazy, but I miss them.
May 28, 2012 @ 15:44:17
Thoughtful post. I think most people struggle with this. Good for your for noticing it! I say that the beauty of being alone is being able to do whatever YOU want to do without judgement or expectations If what you want to do is watch a full season of Charmed, that is what you get to do! We are so rarely alone, I think the important part is to be intentional about how you are choosing to use sacred alone time. Just my thoughts – I love what others have shared here! Thanks for a great post!
May 28, 2012 @ 20:25:19
When I make intentional choices with my time, I feel okay about it, but it is so easy to just succumb to the call of nothing and not be intentional about things.
May 28, 2012 @ 20:44:38
I hear you on that. Hopefully, setting an inention will be the easy part!
May 29, 2012 @ 06:46:50
I am intending to set more intentions this week.
May 29, 2012 @ 05:12:00
Before I had children, I didn’t appreciate my alone time. Now, I crave it and look forward to nights when the family might go off to the summer camp and I have to stay behind because I have to be at my mom’s or something like that. I have learned the art of being alone and I spend it writing–because I don’t get to write as often as I like and I LURVE to write.
My mother has never learned the art (I love the way you put that, btw). She is lonely. And I think that is different than being alone. I think one can be alone and still feel fulfilled, satisfied, joyous. But I think it’s possible to be surrounded by people and activities and still be lonely. That’s a terrible thing.
May 29, 2012 @ 06:46:21
I know exactly what you mean. My mother is similar. I don’t want to be like that. I want to feel fulfilled even when I am alone.
May 29, 2012 @ 05:38:13
I’m pretty good at being alone, I’m an only child so I’m used to it. I think that’s why I write – I had to tap into my imagination a lot growing up!
May 29, 2012 @ 06:45:31
I wish my only child daughter was a little better at it.
May 29, 2012 @ 09:03:51
My guilty pleasure when I’m alone? Blogging. haha! Great post, Lisa- it’s true that being alone can be a little guilt-ridden- was I productive enough with this rare time? But, I think having fun has a marginal utility all its own. Enjoy it!
May 29, 2012 @ 09:34:10
I am beginning to.
May 30, 2012 @ 09:26:03
Boy can I relate to this (and believe it or not, I’m going to be blogging about something very similar later today or tomorrow!!) because my husband and daughter are going camping tonight — and I’ll be home alone at night for the first time in I don’t know how long. This will be huge because in May we’ve had both kids (and friends) home off and on… so I guess I can count myself lucky that I’ll at least have the dog. But I’m guessing, like you, I’ll be watching a movie or something else on Netflix! Or maybe I’ll write… like a mini writing retreat at home…
May 30, 2012 @ 09:34:40
Good luck! But if you get lonely, we can always chat on Facebook.
May 30, 2012 @ 09:52:58
I’ll keep it in mind, and I’m not kidding
May 30, 2012 @ 09:56:40
I’m not either. I’m usually near my computer, except that I just remembered that tonight I am going to a college alumna meeting, the only night I won’t be home. Anytime though.