Sworn to Solitude

I don't know how to be alone anymore

I like to think that I’m generally good at entertaining myself. Historically, alone time hasn’t been a problem thanks to my endless list of chores, hobbies, and random home projects in various stages of completion. Even when I’m not busy, I usually find ways to make myself busy, which can be a blessing and a curse.

But this week was a serious test. And honestly, I’m not sure if I’m as good at being alone as I thought.

On Tuesday, Ryan went back to work full time, in-person, for the first time since we started dating in 2019. That gives me 45 hours every week for the foreseeable future where I’ll be left to my own devices.

At first, I was pretty optimistic about the change. Now that I’d have an enormous amount of time to myself, I’d finally be able to devote most of my day to freelance work and things I wanted to get done around the house.

But as you might’ve guessed by the fact that I’m even writing this newsletter, his first week back did not go as I envisioned.

The day after Labor Day, Ryan and I were having breakfast together as I got a text that our local grocery co-op needed last-minute volunteers. I offered to help. As it turns out, it was a very good thing to have an excuse to get out of the house on the first day of our new schedule. A productive distraction.

But the next day, reality set in. On Wednesday, I had the ~real experience~ of being alone for nine hours.

That morning, I made a to-do list and then sat on my phone looking at social media for a while. Then when it was time to work on stuff, I couldn’t figure out where to start. Did I want to clean or send emails? Read a book or start brainstorming some freelance pitches? Run to the grocery store or hang back and do dishes?

The decision paralysis sent me back to staring at my phone. Once you get into the scroll hole, it’s hard to pull yourself out of it — especially when you’re alone.

Somehow I eventually got to work, but I was mad at myself for wasting so much time, as is customary whenever that happens.

A few hours passed of moderate productiveness, for which I was thankful. But then, the loneliness set in.

I guess I didn’t realize how weird it would be for Ryan and I to be apart for nine hours a day. I know, I know, all of you single people and folks in long-distance relationships are probably rolling your eyes right now.

I need to emphasize this, though — Ryan and I have spent almost every waking moment together since 2020. We both worked from home through the early COVID days, surviving two years of telecommuting from our 750-square-foot apartment where our living room was a shared office.

We upgraded to a bigger apartment last year, and planned to keep our work from home jobs as long as we could. But after Ryan quit in the spring due to intense burnout and I was laid off a few months later, we knew the universe was telling us it was time to start a new chapter.

Sure, there were a few vacations, doctors appointments, and meetups with friends and family that we did on our own over the years. And we’re not glued to the hip on a regular basis, either. We like to do things together, but also spend a lot of time alone in each other’s company (like right now, where I’m writing in the living room and Ryan is sitting just a few feet away from me, watching YouTube videos).

There’s something odd about obligatory separation at this point in my life. I feel like, in some ways, I’m single again. The last time I was this alone was back in college, where I did as much on my own as humanly possible — some things I probably wouldn’t feel comfortable going at solo anymore.

In a more extreme case, I once found myself with an abnormally long gap between semesters and took a train from Milwaukee to Portland, Oregon. I rode for three days, sandwiched between strangers, curled up on coach seats because I couldn’t afford a room on the train to myself.

Then when I got to Portland, I stayed alone in an Airbnb with several other strangers. I took public transit and wandered around a city where I knew nobody. I borrowed a car through one of those rental apps and drove through thick pine forests until I reached the Pacific Ocean, simply so that I could witness the power of its waves.

I used to love experiencing life on my own. Now, it just feels boring. Why would I get excited about things if I have no one to share them with?

It’s kinda like the old tree-falls-in-a-forest paradox. For the last four years, if a tree fell and I was around to hear it, it was likely that Ryan would hear it too. We could validate each other’s experience, like “yes, that was a tree, and OMG, did you see the way it fell?”

Now if a tree falls, it’s just me. I can text Ryan about it, sure, but it’s not the same as him being there to watch it happen. He’ll believe me, no doubt — but I’ll never be able to replicate the level of detail he needs to relive the moment with me. For him, there’s a separate reality where the tree never even fell.

The point is, we’ve been together for so long that it now feels weird when an experience doesn’t exist in our collective memory. And I know we’ll have to get used to that, since 45 hours of our lives every week will be spent making memories on our own.

I anticipated the biggest change in our new schedule to be figuring out how to structure my days. What I didn’t realize was how much time I’ll have to spend relearning how to be alone — and finding value in making memories just for me.

***Thanks for reading! A quick note: I’m going to start publishing these newsletters on Tuesday from here on out. Monday is technically a weekend day for me now, and it only feels fair to give myself until the very end of the weekend to schedule my posts.***