Most people are afraid of what comes up when there is nobody around to distract them. We often chase people for what they help us forget: loneliness, grief, shame, the low hum of everything we’d rather leave unfelt. So we collect people like clutter. We confuse attention with connection and presence with love, and we run from silence as if it could destroy us. In 2020 and 2021, I went through a phase I now look back on with quiet compassion. I stayed friends with people who were wrong for me because I was terrified of sitting with myself. There was sadness in my home I had no idea how to face, and I had buried things for so long that I had no words for them. Being alone felt like drowning, so I held on to anyone who kept me afloat, even when they pulled me further from myself. I understand now that I was looking for distractions, and that turning other people into tools for my own healing ruins things. That is fear dressed up as intimacy.
My generation struggles with solitude. We fill every gap with noise. We call someone a soulmate because they make us feel less lonely for an hour. We mistake friendship for romance, stretch connections too far, and then resent them for breaking. Underneath all of this, most of us were never taught how to enjoy our own company. Nobody told me that hobbies are a form of emotional independence, or that reading, writing, drawing, walking, baking, or even staring out the window can feel like coming home. When you put time into things you love, you stop expecting other people to rescue you from boredom. Hobbies show you who you are when no one is watching, and they bring you back to yourself.
I have changed, slowly. Empty rooms scare me less now, and I’ve stopped trying to prove my worth all the time. I have friends who let me be myself without a performance. They teach me through the way they listen, the way they make things, and the way they live honestly. Our conversations challenge me and ground me, and these are people I grow with. Solitude has become a place I return to, a room where I meet myself again and again, where I can sit in silence and still feel whole.
Living alone is still hard some days. I live practically by myself now, and sometimes it’s sad. I read a lot of books. I vacuum my floor more than I used to. Some days I crave human presence so much that I spray perfume, something like Old Spice, around the room so it smells like someone else is there. I also know that living alone is a privilege for a woman from my background. None of my ancestors ever lived by themselves or had this kind of freedom. It’s still lonely. Sometimes I hide behind my pain because I’d rather people didn’t feel sorry for me, and I don’t want to be someone’s passing moment of sympathy. Living alone has given me a lot of chances to know myself, and some days it’s really sad. Learning to be alone is a kind of freedom. When you’re at ease with yourself, you stop using people as escape routes, and you choose and love better. That’s who I’m learning to become.
