4: How To Be Alone
I found this quote on Pinterest one time (said every white girl ever) about this guy who was traveling abroad alone, and somebody asked him, “Aren’t you afraid to travel alone? Isn’t it dangerous?” To which he replied, “Don’t we go through life alone anyway?” Which is very Modernist haha but also very true. I found this quote like right when I got to Oxford and it honestly hit me really hard. I think a lot of the problem with our generation is that we’ve forgotten how to be alone, and be okay with it. We are always posting every moment of our lives on Snapchat and on Instagram, we are writing the most mundane thoughts on Facebook and on Twitter (remember in Easy A when the teacher is all like “Brian just bought a Cherry Coke from the gas station, woot woot raise the roof” in a really sarcastic way? No? Me neither…), we are dating people who aren’t right for us just because we are scared to be alone. One of my friends recently cut out another friend for a list of really stupid reasons honestly but one of them was that she couldn’t do anything alone. Like she broke her phone and they dropped her off at the mall to fix it and she was like “wait isn’t anyone gonna come with me??” Like no dude no one wants to waste an hour + doing nothing while some tech geek who didn’t go to college fixes your phone.
I found another quote one time that I really love because I think it describes Greek culture in college but also Americans in general. It was something along the lines of “Beware of those who cannot be alone, because they are nothing when they are alone.”
When I was in Oxford, the first 4 ish weeks I spent with these two girls basically every single day because we really hit it off first of all and secondly, it’s really hard to be alone in a new place without being scared. But then I got really sick and spent a couple days in bed and something snapped inside of me and from then on I spent the majority of each day alone at the library or walking around town alone or in my room reading or writing alone. And I felt better. I didn’t feel like I was drowning being away from friends and family and my (ex)boyfriend. My happiness significantly increased and I stopped drinking just to feel sad (which is a discussion for another time). But my point is that being alone gave me time to have experiences unique to myself, rather than sharing them with other people and developing reactions based on theirs. Being alone gave me the space I needed to work through my problems.
During this time, my best friend in Athens went on formal with my (ex)boyfriend (because I told her to stop giving her a dirty look) and I had thought that I was going to be so jealous because formal last year was literally the most fun event of the entire year. But so she calls me gushing about everything and tells me how the hotel messed up or something so there were like twelve of them crushed into the same hotel room and they were all being really good sports about it and had made a giant bed on the floor and someone had done something and almost been arrested and someone else had done a thing and been pick pocketed blah blah blah and honestly I could not have cared less. I was so glad to not be in that stuffy room in that stuffy city and having to deal with all those people and be social. I was happy to be alone.
So now here I am at the beach, alone for the next few weeks because though I invited some friends they don’t know when they’ll be able to come down. And I am totally okay with it. My aunt (whose condo I’m staying at) was like I’m sorry you’re alone, and here are some of my friends who would love to make you dinner one night, and also you should come up and visit us in Orlando, and we’ll be down on Saturday to take you boating. And then my cousin messaged me this morning and was all, come up to Orlando whenever I’ll take you around town! And it took me a minute to get past my thankfulness and realize that they were sorry for me, because they think I don’t have any friends (I have like 4 okay don’t be sorry for me). But that is far from the case. I invited a bunch of people to come visit for a weekend or so, but, knowing that it’s a 6+ hour drive for them, really hoped they wouldn’t come. I’m here because I want to be alone, at my favorite place on earth. I’m choosing to be alone here. I want to feel like myself again.
And that’s what our generation doesn’t get. We drown our thoughts in books and Netflix and alcohol and weed and we forget that it’s okay to just be. I’ve done it too, I understand. But here I am at the beach, and I’m going to be here for a while, and I’m going to be alone. And I know I’ll get lonely at some point, and I know I’ll get bored and want somebody to come by. But for now, I’m working through my shit and I’m going to be alone. And I’m going to like it.