A year ago, I wrote this personal reported essay for a magazine feature writing class. We had to choose a topic that spoke to us and could be researched. I chose being alone.
Anyone who is close to me knows I need my me time — a time when I'm alone with my thoughts, away from the world, and able to decompress. So, I wrote an essay and interviewed experts on aloneness.
In the current state of the world, with COVID-19 forcing a lot of us to spend quiet moments with ourselves, this unpublished essay is more relevant than ever. I wanted to share this work in hopes that it may help someone find solitude instead of loneliness in their time spent alone.
Here it is...
The sacredness of alone time
Answer texts. Check likes on my posts. Snapchat until I fall asleep. Spend Thursday nights out in a hip bar.
My verdict was guilty. I did all of the above.
I sought validation from people behind phone screens, added unnecessary events to my already packed calendar and looked for the noise instead of the quiet. I was guilty of never penciling myself in to my own life. I wanted to overturn my guilty plea.
Now, I spend some Friday nights alone in my tattered sweatpants and between pink bed sheets. Sometimes I take a lonesome walk on a Tuesday evening or bring my almost-finished journal to a peaceful park bench. I need to spend time with the person I would like to get to know better — myself.
When I’m alone, I untangle the thoughts knotted in my head like my curly hair after a restless night’s sleep. This time spent with no other people is when my creativity flourishes, my feelings are organized, and my life begins to make sense.
Jack Fong, a sociology professor at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, defines solitude as “quality time with yourself.”
“Solitude is an invitation back to the self,” he said. “It is an invitation to get to know who you are again.”
Spending time alone used to scare me. Thoughts would race through my head faster than cars around a speedway. I have no friends. I’m lonely. I’m not the person I want to be.
It took time to realize that being alone is not a negative thing. Well, if it’s voluntary; solitary confinement situations are different.
The benefits reaped from solitude are far and wide, says psychologist Sherrie Bourg Carter. Improved concentration, increased productivity, a brain reboot, solved problems and time to self-reflect to name a few.
Alone time, whether in a relaxed state or asleep, gives our bodies time to replenish the chemicals used while active and awake, Carter said. Without solitude, she said, many people are likely to burn out.
But there could be a down side to solitude.
Fong said solitude mandates having to confront yourself. Why? Because you cannot lie to yourself when you are by yourself.
“The process of getting to know yourself when you’re alone is a very fearsome process,” he said. “This is why so many people in society don’t want to be alone or are afraid to be alone.”
In today’s social-media-driven, constantly distracted society, it is crucial that we take time to discover ourselves and not follow the scripts society writes for us, Fong said. Technology, the same thing that deprives us of solitude, nudges us toward a greater appreciation for the time we have alone.
Carter agreed — technology does not allow us rest. A text, a phone call, an email, an Instagram notification — when your phone is on, so are you.
“We’ve become, in my opinion, Pavlov’s dogs,” she said. “We’ve just become so classically conditioned to respond to those bells, dings and whistles.”
Fong describes solitude as an expression of freedom — you are completely on your own terms. You find the freedom to be who you are, learn how to validate yourself and teach yourself the art of self-forgiveness through this time alone.
19th century philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer said in one of his books, “A man can be himself only so long as he is alone; and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom; for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.”
Some people struggle with this freedom and what to do with time by themselves. Personally, I write; my journal is my escape, flooded like a broken dam with the words I can’t seem to speak. I also listen; not to other people but to what my mind and body is telling me I need.
Fong practices solitude through meditation. He travels to Alabama Hills, a range north of Los Angeles, and finds his favorite rock to meditate on as the orange hues of the sunrise wash over him. This is when he is at peace with himself, clears his mind and prepares to go about his day.
Minaa Omar, a senior animal sciences major at the University of Florida, enjoys taking time for herself by leaving her phone at home and going on a walk around campus. She finds it important to take a break from the overwhelming energy of being surrounded by people, both electronically and physically, to refresh and learn to be happy alone.
“You figure out more about yourself and I feel like you grow a lot as a person if you spend time with yourself rather than constantly being around people,” she said.
I know exactly how Omar feels. But it’s not always easy to be alone.
That’s why Carter tells her patients to start with baby steps. Alone time can be as simple as putting away your phone, going to bed or waking up earlier, closing your office door or having lunch outside.
“You schedule everything else in your life,” she said. “Are you not important enough to actually put yourself in your schedule? I think you are.”
At the end of my heavily scheduled day, nothing feels better than being welcomed home by the emptiness and silence of my bedroom. Aah...