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Good Christ, has it really been a week since I posted? Autumn is here in full force, replete with brisk nights, frosty mornings and flannel blankets. While I am gripped with painful longing for NYC at this time of year, I've discovered one needn't be on the east coast to experience the change of seasons. We definitely have our own brilliant array of fall colors, smells and textures here in coastal northern California. Of course, it could never rival what took my breath away each autumn in New England, but the browns, reds and oranges of early autumn, by far my favorite season, are pretty impressive here as well.
I've been busy with freelance work on top of my regular workload and trying to squeeze in some downtime. And somehow, in the midst of the busywork and crowded calendar, I've become a more solitary person than I'd ever imagined myself being.
Not that that's a bad thing. I have always relished my time alone and I'm quite certain I require far more solo time than most humans. I am, by nature, a solitary creature. Even in my childhood, I was always content to play or read quietly by myself, never feeling the need to surround myself with playmates. I believe I was a far curiouser child than most, far more obsessive and more in need of structure and routine than others. Painfully introverted from the start, I'm afraid.
My teenage years are the only time in my life I remember really wanting to socialize and constantly be with friends. That's probably because I had a delightful group of warm, intelligent friends whose company I enjoyed and with whom I felt I could be myself. Lucky for me, most of them are still a big part of my life two decades later and still, I relish my time with them.
But aside from brief spurts of frenzied mingling, I've been entirely comfortable with extended periods of complete solitude. Even when I've been in relationships, my boyfriends were well aware of the crankiness that ensued when I felt even remotely crowded. Must have me time. Must have me time. Must have me time. Perhaps that's why I've been known to push potential suitors away or to shun relationships? I'm simply, at least in part, giving in to the deeply-felt fear of having my me time compromised!
What's strange about my current living situation is that I feel more alone in my small-town setting than I did living in a megalopolis like New York. Here, people know each other, they trade genial hellos in the supermarket or at the gym. In NYC, I was mostly anonymous and yet I never felt quite as lonely when surrounded by millions of other anonymous people as I do in a town where I run into a familiar friendly face at every turn.
Truly embracing the solitary life is significantly easier, at least for me, in a big city where solitude finds solace amongst the teeming masses. I have everything I need within myself. I have never been more sure of that in my entire life. It just helps to have that security blanket of fellow metropolitan dwellers around my shoulders to remind me that solitude doesn't necessarily equate with loneliness.
Posted by ayelet at October 25, 2005 01:54 PM