{"id":267,"date":"2017-03-09T12:23:00","date_gmt":"2017-03-09T12:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/2017\/03\/09\/on-being-alone\/"},"modified":"2020-10-26T23:55:13","modified_gmt":"2020-10-26T23:55:13","slug":"on-being-alone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/2017\/03\/09\/on-being-alone\/","title":{"rendered":"On Being Alone"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"woodland<\/a><\/div>\n

I love my family, I really do. \u00a0My kids are great (when they aren’t driving me crazy) and my husband is wonderful. \u00a0We have been married for twenty-six years and I would marry him all over again. \u00a0But sometimes, just sometimes, when they all walk out of the house in the morning I breathe a huge sigh of relief. \u00a0Because I love that hour when I am all by myself in the house, the hour before I have to run around like a mad person and get ready to leave myself.<\/p>\n

I love being alone.<\/p>\n

I love the silence-no one talking, no one stomping through the house, no one…breathing? \u00a0Is that going too far? \u00a0There is a different quality to the silence when the house is empty. \u00a0Even if everyone is quietly busy there is still the potential for noise and somehow that makes it less quiet.<\/p>\n

I love being able to do exactly what I want for a few minutes even if exactly what I want is just to sit on the couch and stare out the window while drinking a cup of tea. There is no one to complain because they ate all the groceries in twenty-four hours. There is no one asking all the “mom” questions. “Where are my gym clothes? What’s for dinner?” There is no one for me to nag. \u00a0“Clean your room. \u00a0Take out the trash. \u00a0Do your homework. \u00a0Eat your vegetables.”<\/p>\n

There is just me and the thoughts in my head which sometimes are overwhelming but frequently are just things that get lost in the everyday chaos of life. \u00a0It is good to let them bubble to the surface again and feel like I am connecting with me and not just the mom who usually inhabits my body.<\/p>\n

I like being alone.<\/p>\n

But I also like it when everyone comes home again. \u00a0I like it when my house is full of noise and conversation and laughter–I am not such a fan of the bickering but you have to take the complete package. \u00a0The thing is, there is a huge difference between being alone and being lonely. \u00a0Alone is good. \u00a0Alone is enjoying your own company and relishing the peace and quiet. \u00a0Lonely is having no one to talk to and feeling overwhelmed by the peace and quiet.<\/p>\n

We live in a world where we are seldom alone but we are frequently lonely. \u00a0Many of us don’t have the communities, the nearby families, and the life-long friendships of past generations. \u00a0We can struggle to make connections with people who don’t quite “get” us. \u00a0We try desperately to align schedules with friends from our past in a frantic bid to not lose complete touch. \u00a0We can spend our lives surrounded by people but somehow still feel slightly lonely; not in any soul-destroying, cry-into-your-pillow way. \u00a0Just in a quiet “something is missing but I’m okay” type way.<\/p>\n

If we are fortunate, we have a family we love, a family that makes us happy.<\/p>\n

But sometimes, just sometimes, it is nice when they all go away and it is possible to enjoy being alone. \u00a0Because that kind of alone, the few stolen minutes out of a busy life, is not lonely.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I love my family, I really do. \u00a0My kids are great (when they aren’t driving me crazy) and my husband is wonderful. \u00a0We have been married for twenty-six years and I would marry him all over again. \u00a0But sometimes, just sometimes, when they all walk out of the house in the morning I breathe a huge sigh of relief. \u00a0Because I love that hour when I am all by myself in the house, the hour before I have to run around like a mad person and get ready to leave myself. I love being alone. I love the silence-no one talking, no one stomping through the house, no one…breathing? \u00a0Is that going too far? \u00a0There is a different quality to the silence when the house is empty. \u00a0Even if everyone is quietly busy there is still the potential for noise and somehow that makes it less quiet. I love being able to do exactly what I want for a few minutes even if exactly what I want is just to sit on the couch and stare out the window while drinking a cup of tea. There is no one to complain because they ate all the groceries in twenty-four hours. There is no one asking all the “mom” questions. “Where are my gym clothes? What’s for dinner?” There is no one for me to nag. \u00a0“Clean your room. \u00a0Take out the trash. \u00a0Do your homework. \u00a0Eat your vegetables.” There is just me and the thoughts in my head which sometimes are overwhelming but frequently are just things that get lost in the everyday chaos of life. \u00a0It is good to let them bubble to the surface again and feel like I am connecting with me and not just the mom who usually inhabits my body. I like being alone. But I also like it when everyone comes home again. \u00a0I like it when my house is full of noise and conversation and laughter–I am not such a fan of the bickering but you have to take the complete package. \u00a0The thing is, there is a huge difference between being alone and being lonely. \u00a0Alone is good. \u00a0Alone is enjoying your own company and relishing the peace and quiet. \u00a0Lonely is having no one to talk to and feeling overwhelmed by the peace and quiet. We live in a world where we are seldom alone but we are frequently lonely. \u00a0Many of us don’t have the communities, the nearby families, and the life-long friendships of past generations. \u00a0We can struggle to make connections with people who don’t quite “get” us. \u00a0We try desperately to align schedules with friends from our past in a frantic bid to not lose complete touch. \u00a0We can spend our lives surrounded by people but somehow still feel slightly lonely; not in any soul-destroying, cry-into-your-pillow way. \u00a0Just in a quiet “something is missing but I’m okay” type way. If we are fortunate, we have a family we love, a family that makes us happy. But sometimes, just sometimes, it is nice when they all go away and it is possible to enjoy being alone. \u00a0Because that kind of alone, the few stolen minutes out of a busy life, is not lonely.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1063,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-thoughts"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=267"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2732,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267\/revisions\/2732"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}