Solitude has always been a double edged sword for me. I have always needed it but at times felt completely imprisoned by it. So it is weird that I am super happy to be alone and to have this time for just me. I guess there is a part of me worrying about when that the sword blade will turn and I will feel cut and bloodied being alone. For today, I am loving it so much that I am worried that a year might not be enough. I am sure that will change in the next few months. I imagine that I will feel like I want to date again come January or February...(This is a head's up...a foreshadowing if you will).
I think that being alone is a place that I have always been but kind of lied to myself about it. What I mean is that I have always felt alone even when surrounded by others. There was this part of me that kept throwing myself back out there as if I kept doing that I would somehow magically feel complete. Truth is that I have only really felt complete when alone. It is the time that I am most at home with myself. The time where I can just be without all the additional drama that others seem to bring to me and my thoughts.
The sword metaphor shows how stuck I have been. I feel as if I have spent my life being ruled by it. Running away from it, wielding it against myself in the battle to maintain myself against others, cut by it, cut others with it, held back at knife point from living my life. Aloneness was this thing that I did when I couldn't handle the world or its inhabitants. Today I am thinking that perhaps solitude is a thing I need to do without all the battle gear.
My hope for this current, intentional bout with solitude is that I can transform the pattern of retreat into something less damaging and into something more life affirming. I do not want to have solitude be the place I go to escape my life. I do not want solitude to represent pain but instead allow this time alone to be a way that I heal myself to believe that being alone is a gift: a place I can return to myself. To rejuvenate, refresh and reinvigorate me so that I can do relationships better, truer and more authentically. I do not want aloneness to become just an escape from others. Instead allow solitude to become a place that is comfortable and safe for me to enjoy so that I can deepen the relationships I have, reflect on what those relationships bring to my life and allow me time to reflect on what I am bringing to those I am in relation with.
I guess what I am trying to say is that I am feeling like solitude could become more than respite from the world. It could become the home base for my soul to more fully be present in my life and in the lives of those about me. I feel very blessed to have given myself this gift of spending time with me. My only real sadness is that it took me this long to get here. I am going to keep allowing this to unfold and relish what I learn along the way. Seems like useful purpose in my life today. Perhaps I can lay down my sword and just let myself be...
