Loneliness is a scary thing. As much as I like being on my own sometimes, I need people around me. They don’t even necessarily need to talk to me. Just being surrounded by people is sometimes sufficient. So when my flatmate/friend said she was leaving way earlier than I thought, I was a little scared at first. So I will have to live here for two weeks on my own? Completely alone? Also, I wanted to travel still, and I thought we can do that together. But it seemed that those plans were no longer in the running.
It took me a few days to get used to the idea, and to even look forward to it a little. When my flatmate left, I felt at ease. Not because I don’t like her company, because I do, but suddenly I could do whatever I wanted. The flat is mine now. Each and every sound each and every piece of rubbish is mine. There’s no one to blame but myself. I can play music as loud as I want, I can dance around the house if I want to, I can sing out loud and so on. There are no limits.
It’s not like much has changed. I just barely use headphones anymore, and you can regularly hear me sing ‘we built the pyramids!’. (If you don’t get this: Big Bang Theory…) Maybe it’s mainly the idea of freedom that makes me happy. However nice it was to have her as a flatmate, you always have certain limits when you are not alone.
I took it a step further when I decided to travel on my own. Which sounds very spectacular, though it’s not. I didn’t want to spend an entire week just at home, so I traveled to a city in Poland where some of my friends were still studying. I did spend eight hours on a train on my own, slept in my hostel alone, and walked around alone half of the time. In the evenings I still had my friends to hang out with. It was a partial solo trip, which I enjoyed a lot. I even felt good, walking around with my map and figuring everything out. Who knew I wasn’t that bad at reading maps? I even noticed that I knew way better what I was looking at. And never, not a single second, not even while eating on my own, I felt uncomfortable.
Now this is something I really like. I’ve never really liked doing things on my own, because often I thought people would think I don’t have friends, they might mock me, and so on. Doing this trip on my own showed me that I no longer think that. Now I even subconsciously realise that it’s no one’s business, and that most people don’t really think about why you are alone somewhere. Why would they? Rationally I’ve known this for years, but now I even felt it, in a way.
Going solo isn’t that big of a deal. It gives a certain amount of freedom. Sometimes it’s easier when you are the only one who has to decide something. All you need is company every now and then. When you have the right balance, you can enjoy both to the max.
Isn’t that quite the life lesson I just got here?
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