Sunday Night Musings: That Summer I Spent Alone

Maybe we all experience moments — or periods — during which we'd rather be alone. Sometimes it's deliberately by choice; sometimes a set of circumstances conspire to leaving to completely by yourself.

The second half of the 1990's was a turbulent time for me.

I'd gone through personal bankruptcy, a business bankruptcy, the end of a 13-year marriage and then my auntie — the one who helped raise me — passed away at age 94. I had also had to move three times in two years, lost my job — twice — and had recently been diagnosed with a heart condition. Oh, and my cat had died.

These are things the affect people deeply... when they are spread out over time — but they become "a bit much" when they all happen to you in a relatively short period of time.

My therapist at the time made me do a "stress assessment" and I scored somewhat over 400 points on a scale where 300+ was a diagnosis of "severe health risk."

And so, I decided to do the one thing I knew I still had access to: I could go back to Denmark and spend some time at my auntie's summerhouse, which had become a sort of "family timeshare" after her passing. So I had a free place to stay; all I needed was airfare and the ability to buy food.

I quite simply shut my life down, and left.

By choice, I ended up spending six weeks in isolation.

I would get up, sit on the terrace and slowly drink coffee, then just walk around the grounds and the local woods, doing no more than looking at birds and insects. My entire "social life" consisted of riding a bicycle to the nearest grocery store, about every 4-5 days.

I didn't get drunk and I didn't get high and I didn't watch TV; I quite simply just "retreated into myself."

I'm not sure my extended family ever quite grokked why I didn't have any interest in seeing them, and I mostly didn't even answer the phone (pre-mobile phone days) because I just didn't want anything much at all to do with humans.

I probably spoke fewer than a couple of hundred words, over six weeks.

I did, however, write extensively... endless personal reflections, and trying to get out all the thoughts that lived inside me. In a sense, all the writing I did might have laid some kind of groundwork for my subsequent foray into the social blogging scene of the late 1990s.

I have long felt that solitude is good for people, in the sense that we learn a lot about ourselves when we are alone, with ourselves. I know this period of isolation was likely the best thing I could have done for myself.

I gained an even deeper understanding of — and appreciation of — the amazing beauty of nature. I made peace with the feeling of being at the edge of tears for weeks on end... and still moving forward with gratitude.

In retrospect, I have little doubt that the person who returned to the US at the end of six week bore very little resemblance to the person who had "run away," just six weeks earlier.

To say that the experience healed me would be a gross overstatement, but the experience definitely transformed me.

You may have heard the expression "don't sweat the small stuff," usually followed by the addendum "it's ALL small stuff."

In a sense, I found myself flowing very deeply down inside that experience. The profound and raw sadness and loss I felt at the start was transformed into a quiet — but constant — background sadness; it wasn't about me, but about the slight ennui one might experience while contemplating the impermanence of all things.

Japanese culture has an expression/concept Mono No Aware which does not translate in to English but might be described as the bittersweet feelings of knowing that what is in this moment will never be again.

And so, I embraced gratitude for what is, while also honoring each moment's eternal passing. And it holds true for people, and for things, and for experiences and ideas.

We spend much time clinging to things, and refusing to let go of them. Truthfully, we can often best honor and enjoy them by embracing their brevity... and passing.

It has been over 25 years since that summer, and much of how my life unfolds today is a reflection of that summer I spent alone. People have come along and tried to "heal" that sadness they sense... but there is nothing there to be healed; all is... exactly as it is supposed to be.

Thanks for stopping by to visit, and have a great week ahead!

How about you? Have you ever felt the need to "get away" from life? Have you ever spent an extended period of time in solitary reflection? Did it help you gain a better understanding of life, and of yourself? Leave a comment if you feel so inclined — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!

(All text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is ORIGINAL CONTENT, created expressly for this platform — Not posted elsewhere!)

Created at 2024.02.19 00:09PST
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