“I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.” – Henry David Thoreau
Can you relate to our friend Mr. Thoreau here? I sure can. Alone time for me is as much of a necessity as air and water.
Maybe you’re the opposite and spending time alone is about as appealing to you as doing your taxes. Hey, different strokes and all that.
There’s a lot of reasons why people may enjoy time alone more than time with others. For me at least, I think one simple phrase encompasses them all – safety in solitude.
A co-worker of mine recently uttered the phrase “safety in solitude”. We were talking about what sections of the restaurant we wanted to work in that night and agreed it’s easier to work in a section alone as working with another person could mess up your flow and make your night harder than it has to be.
Or you could end up just being stuck working next to someone who annoys the living fuck out of you.
You might have to work harder being in a section alone, but at least you won’t have anyone interrupting your work, messing up your tables, or destroying your peace and serenity.
Solitude is the safe option. I always pick working alone if I can.
But his comment made me realize that I think I find safety in solitude all the time, not just at work. Hiking, yoga, shopping, day trips – all usually done alone. I even live alone.
Who’s to say why some people are loners and some are people persons. But as a self-ascribed loner, I do find the solitude to be comforting, healing, medicinal even. Me alone with the company of my thoughts – sublimely safe.
Safe for my mental health that is. Alone time is the best way for me to bring calmness into my mind and my life, especially after a long day of work dealing with high-maintenance, gluten-allergic Karens and their everything-allergic spawns of Satan that make me want to jump out a window.
Now don’t get me wrong, there’s much to be said for hanging out after work and venting about the frustrations of a day of Karens with the people who can relate best – your coworkers. That’s why happy hour was invented right?
But even after a good gripe session with some delightfully therapeutic pinot grigios, I always look forward to the quiet time at home – that peaceful time to be away from all the noise and regroup my thoughts and recharge my brain. I think my overthinking brain is loud enough as it is with constant internal chatterings that outside noise just compounds the situation.
I need the quiet to sort out my soul.
I even planned an entire trip of quietness recently with an overnight stay in Lambertville, NJ. Yep, had a couple days off so thought I should go somewhere with this gift of time so I chose Lambertville.
Never been? It’s a cool little town just across the river from New Hope, PA. It has a bunch of cute shops and restaurants and old homes with character. It feels homey there.
Got myself a cute airbnb for the night and settled in, just me and this laptop to keep me company. Isolated, alone and thankful for this respite of peace and quiet. Of course the Universe being the practical jokester that it is, had other ideas.
BANG!! BRUM-BRUM-BRUM-BRRRR!!! CLACK, CLACK, CLACK!!! RUUUUUMBLE!! CHINK-CHINK-CHINK-CHINK!! BEEEEEEPPPPP BEEEEEPPPP BEEEEEPPPP!! BAM!!!
Yep, there was overnight construction on the street directly in front of the house I was staying at.
DIRECTLY IN FRONT.
Of course. Why wouldn’t there be? So fitting for my life. From 10 pm to 4 am – dump trucks, jackhammers, bulldozers, men yelling, lights blaring. Just…fucking…figures. 
We’ll file this one under “Complete and Utter Irony” and “This Shit Only Happens to Me”.
All in all, it was quite laughable really. So while I may not have found the hushed tranquility there that I was seeking, I did find welcome seclusion. And something to write about.
Now while I went to Lambertville to find some safe solitude and get some writing done, there are other times when solitude is necessary to keep you safe from, you guessed it, vampires. Um, Christine, there’s no such thing as vampires. Oh there aren’t? I beg to differ.
There are energy vampires and they lurk among us all.
My acupuncturist educated me in the ways of the energy vampires. These people look quite normal on the outside, but once you get close they suck all your energy from you and you don’t even realize it’s happening.
I bet if you think about it, you know some of these people too. People who always have so much drama going on that their life is like one giant episode of General Hospital. Their drama needs attention and energy and they bleed it out of anyone they can find. They may even create drama out of nothing thus furthering the whirlwind of chaos that inevitably sucks you dry.
Don’t get me wrong, life is life and we all have our own dramas, issues and trials and tribulations on a daily basis. But energy vampires take these and run with it. Run to you to feed on.
I’m sorry but this shit is just overwhelming sometimes. Or as Thoreau more eloquently put it “wearisome”.
Yes, when people have real legitimate problems going on you want to be there to offer a dependable ear for listening and a sympathetic shoulder to cry on and you should. Let people pour their heart out to you because someday you’ll need to do the same.
But when it comes to inane and trifling Port Charlesian melodramatics, be careful not to let yourself get completely drained. You need your energy for important things like your own mental health.
So yeah, on the days you forget to bring your garlic, Irish Goodbye those vampires and their piddling bullshit and go enjoy the safety of solitude.
But even if I’m not hiding from vampires or de-stressing from work, I crave solitude.
I imagine for people persons the opposite must be true. They require social interaction for their own sanity. Once in a while I get it, I love going out and laughing and joking with my friends too.
I have trouble wrapping my mind around the extreme of that though – you know, the people who can never stand to be alone. They’re either always out socializing or their house regularly looks like a hotel lobby in Times Square on New Year’s Eve.
Then there’s the kind of social people who are never without a significant other. They always seem to have one boyfriend/girlfriend after another, even if that person means about as much to them as forgotten fridge leftovers. Better to have any old person than no one right? Wrong.
I’d rather be alone than have just any warm body there just because I need someone to talk to. I have plants for that. But hey that’s just me. Leave me alone with my solitude and I’ll leave you alone with your revolving door of company.
Maybe I like being alone too much. Who’s to say? Only me I suppose. Only the loner knows. But hey it makes me happy so I’ll keep going with it. Just like my social butterfly friends should keep doing what makes them happy.
Maybe this piece should be called Happiness in Solitude.
Hmm…let me run that by the plants.
“I’m not anti-social; I’m pro-solitude” – Beth Buelow
CM
3/22/21
