The ups and down of living alone

When you live alone your extroverted or introverted tendencies would be heightened.

If you fall into the later, like me, your house will be like a sort of refuge. It is your judgement free zone. It is what you are thinking of when you find yourself at an awkward date, when the movie at the cinema falls short of your expectations, when you are at a party you wish you never went.

H O M E…even when you have nothing important to do or sometimes important things like walking around naked, showering with the bathroom door open, binge eating in bed and lip syncing to your favorite song.

There are the awkward parts of being unable to wear that dress because there is no one available to help with the zip and the sad part of being solely responsible for your betterment when you take ill. You will be forced to grow up.

It is relieving that you can pray aloud without anyone judging your prayer points.

There are bills which teach you life lessons on budgeting more than that financial management course in school ever taught you.

And then there’s the loneliness. The desire for human companionship. When this feeling of loneliness creeps, a fridge full of junk and 5MB/s internet speed are no match for it.

Life starts to feel like a routine.

Deciding what to wear with no one available to give you feedback, looking good with no one to take you a photo, a photo album full of selfies, deciding what to eat, deciding cooking portions for one, serving yourself and having to eat that very good or horrible food alone.

It’s even more crazy that when you eventually have company in form of family or friend, you start missing your alone time after a few days. You want them around but you don’t really want them.

What do I really want? You wonder.

You may have always felt mature and like an adult but nothing tests that more than living alone. You will be happy to know that you can get shit done. You don’t realize how many small accomplishments you experience regularly while being alone, whether it’s taking out the trash, bolting the door every night, paying your bills on time, fixing something that’s broken or killing a cockroach. It is empowering.

This February makes it a year for me and the growth has been immense.

While there have been some hard moments, I love the self reliant woman I have become and I would do this over and over again.