Lessons from being alone

I am fortunate enough to come from a supportive family, to have made and kept loyal friends, and to have experienced what reciprocal romantic relationships can be. The people in my life, and the relationships I cultivate with them, are my greatest joy. These relationships allow me the pleasure of growing alongside my fellow growers, twisting and tangling my journey around theirs, and having company as I crawl/run/skip along life’s uneven terrain (depending on my mood). Nonetheless, a couple of years ago I felt a deep craving to explore some independence. I wondered if my close relationships had made me reliant on others for support or validation, and I wanted to test myself in the arena of solitude. What a ride it has been.

Roughly two years ago, I found myself newly single and about to graduate from university. I was excited by the possibilities of forging unchartered territories alone, with the space and freedom to express any part of myself that fancied emerging from the cocoon of the previous few years. I felt that I had been dependent on others for encouragement and support. When I had a good day or a big win of any kind, I would immediately reach to share my success, to celebrate - or maybe just to validate. I had the same habit in difficulty: when I encountered an obstacle or woke up to the disappointing texture of the wrong side of the bed, I felt that it was somehow up to others to get me through. This didn’t sit right with me. I knew that I wanted to spend some proper Alone Time to unlearn these behaviours, and to introduce myself to a purer version of myself. Independence became my goal, and so when I found myself taking 36 hour journeys by myself, or pulling back my own hair to vomit into the toilet of a moving bus, you could maybe say I was killing it.

The initial teething period was a little difficult; I remember feeling embarrassed to be alone, as if people would wonder where my friends were if they saw me sitting on a park bench by myself or asking the waiter for a table for one. Before too long, I became comfortably acquainted with my own company. I travelled alone, often choosing to read in a café over socialising with the endless stream of backpackers who I found myself surrounded by. Before that experience, I would always choose to spend my time with people if I could. I was (and I remain) an extroverted person who revels in shared experience but, one day roughly a year ago, I found myself alone up a mountain in Oaxaca and I realised how far I had come. I had started to find meaningful ways to celebrate my own successes, and when the going got tough I learned how to hold my own hand. I laughed at things when I was alone, having gained a new perspective on fun and pleasure and joy - an unadulterated perspective that was mine alone. I earned a new understanding of myself, which is probably something like what I had hoped to find when I embarked upon the quest for independence. The bliss of this achievement was interrupted when I started to notice the cracks in holding independence as an objective.

I was confronted by the extent of my autonomy when my sister came out to travel with me, and I started to see that there is sometimes a fine line between self-reliance and detachment. We are social creatures, with research revealing a link between loneliness and high blood pressure, heart disease, obesity, a weakened immune system, anxiety, depression, cognitive decline, Alzheimer’s disease, and even death, and I had been neglecting my human need for belonging. My growth was bringing me full circle, and I began to notice the intimate trust that grows from close relationships where one can rely on the other. Nevertheless, my newfound independence came in extremely handy when I moved to London.

Over the last six months, I have lived with seven different strangers in different parts of London. Although I know lots of people in this huge city, they have all been a little too far away for a casual visit, and most of them live with other friends so could take or leave a casual visit from me anyway. I turn up to most social occasions by myself. I cook by myself. I have spent many a Sunday by myself (by far my least favourite solo activity). Most of the time I actually find this pretty empowering. I feel proud of myself for having created such a strong and steadfast independence. I actively sought the lone wolf experience, and I have certainly become a stronger and more self-assured person for having lived it. However, I now feel myself moving beyond my independence towards a third state of being: interdependence.

At the very beginning of our lives, we are completely dependent, with no choice but to rely entirely on our parents to meet our most basic needs. Through childhood, we learn about the world, and about ourselves, by emulating what we see around us, and our innate desire to be accepted within our tribe dictates who we mould ourselves into. As we venture out into the world, the more fortunate of us might feel enough of a fundamental belonging to start to channel their own, original voice. This helps them to gain a sense of independence from the crowd they had religiously followed in younger years; they become better able to fend for themselves, to express themselves, to decide their own trajectory and to find their own value in that. Many of us see this level of independence as a goal - I know I certainly did. However, when we seek complete self-sufficiency, we deny ourselves of the magic of collaboration. All of life is interconnected, and by leaning into this wisdom we can elevate our potential as an individual to the potential of the collective.

‘Dependent people need others to get what they want. Independent people can get what they want through their own effort. Interdependent people combine their own efforts with the efforts of others to achieve their greatest success.’ – Stephen R. Covey

I am proud to have nurtured the sapling of my independence and watched it blossom into a newfound ease in my own company, a sturdy confidence in my dodgy decisions, and the ability to hold my space as a laid-back loner. If independence is a step up from dependence, interdependence would be the next stage in the evolution, and so it was necessary to pass through this previous stage as a stepping stone to a more connected, collaborative future. I am now excited to level up. I have moved in with a friend to cat-sit together for a few months. We are putting in a joint effort with the cats; we are cooking together; watching TV together; practising yoga together; most importantly we're enjoying each others' company. It feels good to relinquish some of the control over my autonomy and to revel in the opportunity to coexist. My solo dance is morphing into a group improvisation, as life's beautiful and unnerving rhythm marches on.