By Yourself
By: Madelyn L. Johnson, Virago
As of late, the hours seem to be going by alone. Now, I want to stop you before the thoughts go too far. Don’t mistake the hours for loneliness, I just mean alone. There’s a difference you see. Hours alone are just more quiet and sometimes boring; though, I believe they are also the ones in which some of the deepest discoveries can be made. Consider last night, I realized how much more I enjoy wine with friends! Aloneness….. Loneliness…… Very different indeed.
Alone is sitting in a coffee shop, book and pen in hand, with the sun caressing your body through the window as you sip. Enjoyment like no other. Alone is playing your guitar at the top of a tree while the wind is whipping and the rain falls with your tears of joy. Alone is when you lay down under the clouds as they skip by and remember all the times you’ve done that before.
Loneliness is drinking red wine on the couch from a sippy cup, wishing that someone would be the wine for you. Then, walking to the kitchen and grabbing chocolate to make you feel sexier about indulging. Loneliness is waiting at the restaurant for that guy and getting that fateful text that he forgot about meeting you. Loneliness is driving along with an overpowering urge to sing love songs to yourself, at the top of your lungs because no one is in the passenger seat.
What the two things have in common is you are by yourself. The difference is how you treat the moment. The image in the mind as singleness becomes consciousness. When you are alone, you can do anything! When you are lonely, you can do practically nothing. Both have songs written for them both are equally wise. Wisdom because of the things we learn from having times of both pure contentment and pure despair. Lonely can be the kind of crippling that humbles you to the bone. Alone can be heroic but don’t get hasty with your independence. How will you treat your moment?