I’ve always been surrounded by people. I’ve been trying to remember a time when I wasn’t, when I was utterly and completely alone, but I can’t. I guess there were some times back in freshman year in high school, when I had a bit of trouble fitting in with my group of friends in my section, but even then I had friends to eat with during lunch break, and friends to hang out with after school.
I remember back in college, the first time I took a Myers-Briggs Type Indicator test, and I was an ISTJ. I didn’t understand it back then, but I find it funny now that I was ever labeled an introvert (I’m an ESFJ now, FYI). Now when I tell people that I’m an introvert, no one believes me, because like I said, I’ve always been surrounded by people. I’m not exactly the friendliest person around because I haven’t really mastered the art of asking questions, but I could hold my own well with a group of new people. I like being with people. Not in the party-in-the-club or in the shopping-crowd way, but you know, spending time with people I love. It’s one of the easiest ways to keep my love tank full.
But.
A few weeks ago, I shut down. No, no, perhaps shut down isn’t the right term for it. I shut up. It started with something, an exhaustion of some sort that just hit me one day that got me gnashing my teeth, sort of, because I was so tired about that one thing that just. won’t. quit. So I shut up, and sat back, perhaps even staring stonily at the distance. But after that particular feeling has passed, I kept at it — the keeping quiet, not the stony staring into the distance. I felt like being quiet for a change, not be really “around”, fade into the background and sit and watch as opposed to always having something to say. Okay, this “fading” was really meant for my online life, where I had this sort of “omnipresence” that my friends teased me about. (I mean, really. I just happen to be online all the time when things happen or show up on my feed. How can I not react?) When I shut up, I stopped looking at the things on my feed. I mean, sure, I browse and react sometimes, but other than that, I just didn’t say anything.
It was nice, not saying anything. It was nice to be an observer for a while.
I bought a present for myself last Christmas, something that I finished reading within five minutes but I didn’t regret getting: How to be Alone by Tanya Davis. I spotted the book while looking for a gift for some friends, and I knew that I wanted it as soon as I recognized the poem inside. I know, I know, I could read it online and even watch the video over and over again, but the book had illustrations, and I wanted to own something that had it. Something I could keep going back to whenever I needed to read it, to soak in the words and to dig for nuggets of wisdom in each page of that short poem with each reread. My favorite parts:
If you are at first lonely, be patient.
If you’ve not been alone much, or if when you were, you weren’t okay with it, then just wait. You’ll find it’s fine to be alone once you’re embracing it.
