Solitude and Forlornness

It has been almost a year since I am staying alone and I would want to write about how it feels to be alone and independent.

Freedom is the first thing that comes to my mind when I think of people who live by themselves. I know many people who stay away from their families, but I don’t know too many people who are totally living ‘alone’ -- by that I mean, I know people who live with friends or their lovers (in shared apartments) but I have met very few people who are really staying with no one but themselves. It is not same. Even if you try to argue that it is and I am sure all people staying ‘alone’ will assert it. It’s not as easy as it looks from outside. Freedom comes with a price - doing the household chores - cleaning, cooking, keeping the house neat, buying stuff for the house, paying the bills, paying the newspaper man, the cable guy, disposing the garbage and the list goes on. It doesn’t sound difficult does it? But trust me it is not easy. I am not complaining at all, because I love staying by myself -- I love doing things for the place I stay. It’s nice to come back home when you feel like and go to the gym or take a nice shower. Make yourself some coffee and sit by the window pane -- enjoying some music or thinking or doing anything that you feel like, for instance roaming around naked in the house – that is what I call total freedom.

But then, sometimes the solitude gets to you. Sometimes you don’t want to come home to an empty space. Sometimes you feel too tired to cook. Sometimes you crave to eat something that you mum cooks the best and you cant even make it half as tasty, sometimes you feel sick and if you need a glass of water to take a medicine, you have to move your ass to get it for yourself, when you wake up all untuned because of a bad dream, you find no one around you to comfort you - we are humans - we all need some human touch -- some assurance that we are cared for and that we are not alone. There is a difference between being alone and being lonely.

I have many friends, a lot of activities to indulge in (which I do), many things to look forward to, many things that can easily keep be busy -- but then there are times when you feel the emptiness.

Yesterday a friend who is one of the very few people staying 'alone' sent me an sms saying "If you stay alone you tend to speak to yourself a lot." Correct -- Now the intellectuals would spring up justifying why it is nice and important to speak to the self. I agree. BUT, when you speak to yourself most of the time because you don’t really have a choice (for whatever reasons - you may be too bored to talk to anyone, or you may not find the right person, or any other thing..), that is the time when it becomes not so nice and not so positive. In fact, it makes you feel lonely and left out. You feel lost. And when you try looking into the future and see that there is going to be no change -- nothing better and nothing worse that will happen, then it gets frustrating. No one likes stagnation and doldrums -- something should happen be it good or bad -- It gives you a sense of being alive. Please don’t take the liberty of trivializing this by calling it "self inflicting sadness/injury" because it is not as simple as it looks. I must admit that even these huffishness don’t last too long -- because none of us want to be sad -- it gets hidden behind something else and then re emerge some other time.

Staying alone however teaches you a lot of things -- just like bad relationships, bad experiences etc.. It teaches you the value of a cooked meal, of finding washed and ironed clothes when you are out from a bath, it teaches you the importance of someone handing out a glass of hot water to you when you are unable to sleep because of a sore throat, it tells you the importance of money, it teaches you the importance of having a person with whom you can discuss the news while having a meal....

Anyway, I don’t really know if I made any sense to anyone and if I could convey what I had set out to write. Its time i should leave for home. My house is waiting for me.