On Being Alone

Meredith: There’s a reason I said I’d be happy alone. It wasn’t ’cause I thought I’d be happy alone. It was because I thought if I loved someone and then it fell apart, I might not make it. It’s easier to be alone, because what if you learn that you need love and you don’t have it? What if you like it and lean on it? What if you shape your life around it and then it falls apart? Can you even survive that kind of pain? Losing love is like organ damage. It’s like dying. The only difference is death ends. This? It could go on forever.

The times we should’ve been alone: all those times we have held on because we were afraid to be alone, all those times we’ve not let go because we wanted the other person to realize how much we love them and hope that they see that love, all those times when we’ve given it our everything even when there is no love anymore because we thought that this was it and all those times we’ve carried on because giving up when things were hard didn’t seem right.

For all those times when we didn’t give up and held on, we shouldn’t have. Because we can never make someone love us back, or make them see our love hoping they’d stay or even make someone see what we see; because at the end of the day, even when you’re in love with someone, you’re still alone. There will be times when you’ll curl up in bed alone after you’ve fought the world, when you’ll have coffee alone on the window sill tracing the rain drops, when you’ll fight your nightmares alone with no one to hold you in the dark.

So the most important thing in this world, the greatest achievement of your life will be the day you learn to live alone, and not in the sad tragic kind of way. In the way, that you realize, that it’s always you for yourself and that it’s not good to depend on companionship to get through life. No doubt you’ll need it, but when you don’t have it, don’t let it take you down.

The pain of breaking up with someone is crippling. It leaves a hollowness inside, a crumble when you want to be held in those arms, when all you need is to hear their voice. The thought of separation is the greatest sign of desperation that makes us want to stay put in the same place and time. But that will pass. The pain, the hurt, the misery- inducing memories, all of that, will pass. The pain will become a sweet ache of the past, an ache associated with all memories. Like you learnt to live again in the past, you’ll learn it again.

Being alone is not sad. It’s not a sign of unhappiness or depression or even escapism. It shows how comfortable you’re living with yourself. Because if you don’t know how to live with yourself, how can you ever expect someone else to live with you. Learn to be alone with your thoughts. We often associate loneliness with sadness. But there is a subtle difference between being lonesome and being alone. Being alone doesn’t necessitate that you’re sad, but being lonely sure does.

Don’t shut out the world to be alone, don’t stop loving or going out or being vulnerable. Do all of that. But make sure that when everything else is gone, and the night falls, you’re happy even left to your own self, that you enjoy staying with you.

Language… has created the word “loneliness” to express the pain of being alone. And it has created the word “solitude” to express the glory of being alone.

-Paul Tillich