Alone

I have a confession: I do not enjoy being alone.

This has been a thing for me throughout my life. As a child, I would often sneak out of my bed and my parents would find me sleeping on the floor next to their bed. Eventually, I wanted my own room when I was older, but even still, aloneness is not my preference.

While I was in college, I was a total lobby rat. I stayed in the lobby with whomever was there to hang out with until all hours of the night so that I knew as soon as I went to my room, I would fall asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.

When college ended, I took off on a journey on my own. The grad school I chose was a place where I knew not a single soul. It felt like a bit of a challenge and one that I was willing to take on. Perhaps this would be the time that I would somehow learn to be alone with myself. A couple of weeks in, I hadn’t made any connections and I found myself alone, once again, in my low impact, fairly shady apartment. This was around the time of 9/11, when all of the world seemed a bit uncertain and chaotic, and I was missing my friends terribly. We had all scattered to various parts of the country after graduation. In a terrible twist of fate, all of the things that could possibly give me temporary comfort in that moment were not working. My flip phone hadn’t been activated yet. For some reason, my landline was not working. The internet was not working. I had burned so many candles in my apartment already that it messed up my stereo system and it wouldn’t play any music. I couldn’t even get any channels to come in on my TV. I decided at least I could comfort myself with some food. And so, I set out to make myself a meal of rice, canned chicken, tomato sauce, and Tabasco sauce. (Follow me for more super disgusting low budget meals!) To my dismay, my can opener would not work. It was in that moment that everything came crashing down. I held my can opener directly in front of my face, and I cussed out that can opener like you wouldn’t believe. That can opener received every possible expletive I could muster and I threw it across the room. It was at that moment I probably threw myself down on the couch and cried until the sun went down. Sometimes I think it’s a really good thing that my future self did not emerge in that moment to tell that young woman that it would eventually get much worse!

(Ironically, that girl who set out to learn to be comfortable alone started hosting dinner parties regularly not long after the can opener incident and eventually became the Social Director for the school.)

For some reason, loneliness has been a bit of a struggle for me throughout my life. Not only do I not like to be alone, but sometimes I feel lonely, even when I am surrounded by people. I struggle with feeling misunderstood and not quite like I fit. The more I talk to people the more I realize that there are many of us who feel that way. If that’s you, you are my people, and I see you.

Not long ago, I unexpectedly found myself alone yet again. But this time, it was different. One day as I was a worshipping and allowing my thoughts to wash over me, it occurred to me, “Here I am alone again. And yet, I have never been less alone. I am absolutely not alone.”

Something new is emerging within me. It truly is a gift. Do I still prefer to be around people? Yes. I am sure that I always will want connection and intimacy. I also am living in and continuing to discover a whole new realm of peace. This is a peace that I have believed in my entire life- the peace that surpasses common human understanding, even in the midst of dire circumstances.

I am alone, and yet, I am sweetly not alone.

Sometimes I have a twinge of fear and angst that paralyzing loneliness will return. And, the reality is, it could. It might. And I will give myself grace if that happens. But for now, I am soaking in a sweet presence beyond and within me. I will hang onto this moment by moment . . . and grow and heal and BE. And be grateful.