Welcome to the first post of my new series Bride to Me š. Thank you for being here! This post is free to read for all subscribers but if you want to continue receiving weekly missives upgrade your subscription below. Free subscribers will continue to get monthly updates :) š
Disclaimer: Iāve always enjoyed spending time alone.
I grew up in a trailer where you could have conversations through the walls and 5 of us lived there along with a rotating menagerie of animals. My room was my sanctuary in childhood, and it remains that way today, wherever I make my home - a space where I can be alone with all of my clothes and things and my comfy bed. (cue āI love my roomā by Elliot Smith)
As I grew up I maintained that I was an extroverted introvert, craving a 50/50 balance of socialization and alone time (ābecause Iām a geminiā šš»āāļøfair, but we all need this, IMO). And for the most part, I got that. Even in the relationship that dominated my adult life my partner and I maintained a certain level of independence and spent a fair amount of time apart on weekends and solo trips to visit friends and family.
I was 21 when I learned about the difference between being alone and being lonely. I was working in Boston for the summer while doing an internship at a museum. Every day I was surrounded by my coworkers as well as hundreds of people as I commuted into the city from Somerville.
But I was so lonely.
My journal was riddled with this complaint. I eventually learned that it wasnāt the quantity of interactions I had, but the quality of them. This counts for my alone time too. I feel vastly different when Iāve spent 2 hours alone scrolling on my phone than when Iāve been reading or walking by myself. Itās a simple lesson but it made an impact.
Over the past few years my life has shifted dramatically, due least of all to the pandemic that continues to haunt us. In the winter of 2020 I began a series of painful transformations as my marriage began its long unraveling. In the years that followed Iāve sought periods of solitude and found comfort in the realm of selfcaretaking. Iāve experienced true love for myself, which is something I never thought was possible.
Iāve also felt solitude go sour during prolonged periods of isolation and depression due to living situations, heartbreak, quarantines, and illness. These dark periods forced me to get to know myself and the bounds of my resilience. As May Sarton suggests, solitude can push us to examine our shadow selves and stay with the āinner stormsā:
āThe value of solitude ā one of its values ā is, of course, that there is nothing to cushion against attacks from within, just as there is nothing to help balance at times of particular stress or depression. A few moments of desultory conversation ā¦ may calm an inner storm. But the storm, painful as it is, might have had some truth in it.ā
-May Sarton, Journal of a Solitude
Sometimes when I doubt myself as a writer and think that every word I write is a waste, I think of the books and poems that have shaped my life. They have changed my life for the better, offered me a vision of what my life could be, or simply made me feel seen: āOk, so itās not just meā.
I donāt mean to equate my words with these texts, but I do know the power of vulnerability, of sharing something about my life to find Iām not alone - the kinship in shared experience.
Here are 3 books that brought me here:
š„ Journal of a Solitude by May Sarton
This book gave me words for something I knew in a wordless way. That time alone could be romantic. Even the cover drew me in: through a window, the view of a typewriter sitting on a desk, illuminated by a lamp. Here was a writer I admired, an older woman who loved to be alone and tend her garden and whose desire to have company and relationships clashed with her sensitivity and desire for peace and the comfort of a routine.
It was 2016. I was engaged at the time, living in a tiny house in a tiny town where everyone knew everyoneās business. I had planned to live out the rest of my life with the man I was going to marry, raising children and living in the woods. But this vision of my future was at odds with the other vision being laid out in Sartonās journal: of choosing solitude, a house of oneās own, a garden, and a guest room. I saw myself in it.
š„ The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
A heartbreaking memoir that taught me a lot about grief and loss. I read most of this book in 2018 on a roadtrip to Philly to attend a conference and I carried it around in my heart for months after I finished it. Iāve recalled it many times since my mom died last September, relating to the way Didion explains how grief changes our brains, leading to what she calls āmagical thinkingā, a kind of liminal state where it feels like anything is possible and all that you think you know comes into question.
š„ all about love by bell hooks
In the early days of 2020 I found myself questioning everything I thought was true. I sought out this book hoping to learn something that would keep my marriage together but instead it helped to reveal profound incompatibilities and patterns that I didnāt want to continue. In 13 essays hooks describes new ways of looking at love, in all of its forms. The lesson that impacted me most was her definition of love, emphasizing its use as a verb rather than a noun.
Iāll leave you with a quote I think about almost everyday, lately:
āLove doesn't just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; remade all the time, made new.ā
-Ursula K. Le Guin
What art - books, poems, movies, music, etc - have shaped your life? I wanna know!