YOU AND ME ON SOLITUDE

sometimes i think I never wanted kids because, somewhere in the pre-teen core of me, I knew I was a person whose need for solitude was great.
Feeling guilty about wanting to be alone doesn’t actually make the desire for solitude go away.
“Introvert” and “extrovert” are over-simplified ideas, but nevertheless it often feels hopeless trying to explain to an extrovert just how important alone time is. It’s not what I do while I’m alone that matters; it is the fact of being alone. Given the choice between aimless chatting and looking out the window, no one else in the house, I choose the window.
Hours. I am talking about hours of solitude, not mere minutes. I know: I am greedy, perhaps even selfish. I am capable of giving up my solitude, particularly during vacations or when loved ones are visiting, but it takes a toll. Not only the muscles in my shoulders tighten up, but the bands of thoughts in my head as well, all my inner and outer sinews humming with tension. Ask a constant fidgeter to sit perfectly still and they may describe the same urgency.
Of course I get lonely too. I miss my friends. I need to talk to people. In moderation.
Having to account for what I do while I’m alone infringes on the solitude itself. I may choose to share that information, but part of solitude is autonomy. I decide what I do when I’m alone, whether it’s productive or not. Maybe I talk to myself, or my pets (I do). Maybe I don’t say a word for hours (that too). At eleven, newly moved to town and away from the horse farm I’d known my whole life, I played the pump organ that sat in our living room. I played it terribly, and it’s difficult to pump while you press the right notes on the keyboard, but I did it while no one else was around. I still remember the quality of the air, the sun hitting the dust motes in a way specific to that time and place.
It is not only that I can’t write when I have no solitude. I can’t think, either. My thoughts feel swaddled in cotton, muffled, soft. I get dumber, as well as crankier.
Rooms feel bigger when I’m alone. The world itself feels more spacious.
Yes, sometimes I watch tv when I’m alone. I prefer the other times, but I try not to judge myself. That’s part of what I learn, what I remember how to teach myself best when I’m alone.
My need for solitude waxes and wanes. If the moon were a giant silver cup—an image I can only truly hold in my mind when alone—some days I would be thirstier than others. I don’t always know what’s in that shining cup. It holds whatever solitude wants to give me.

Thanks Katie