questions, and thoughts, on living alone.

 

are humans supposed to live alone? 

“Man is by nature a social animal,” Aristotle claimed. 

What would he make out, I wonder, of our Loneliness Epidemic? Would he furrow his brow when we explain to him the authorities have deemed it a public health crisis, stemming from the burnout, social media, and physical isolation we’ve collectively normalized in our post-Covid era? What would he say when we tell him one in two adults feel lonely, and yet we continue to burrow into our screens – desperate for connection, of something we can’t put our finger on?

Aristotle did not live alone.

am I supposed to live alone?

“Mom, what was I like as a baby?” I asked in the car one day.

“You were mostly content, as long as you were being held,” she replied. “I think you just wanted to be in on the action rather than left in your crib.”

I nodded my head, quietly reflecting on how it then took me years to fall asleep in my own bed. My parents – fatigued by bigger issues stirred about among my three teenage siblings – obligingly let me fall asleep in their room before my dad carried me into my own bed, once I was too sleepy to protest. The clinginess of their five-year-old was a battle not worth fighting when they were discovering stashes of weed in desk drawers and navigating suspensions for smoking cigarettes on school property. And I, sipping a Capri Sun amid my mountain of stuffed animals on a twin bed I never fell asleep in, lovingly capitalized upon their leniency with the highest degree of youngest-child syndrome.

I can’t help but wonder if my delay in hitting these developmental milestones was a symptom of some bigger, unaddressed problem. Why couldn’t I be alone?

Now, I consider myself an independent person. I went to college out-of-state, studied abroad, and continue to live 700 miles away from my childhood home. My therapist deemed me an introvert and helped me understand that my social battery thrives on quality connection over attention. I don’t need to be the center of focus; sometimes, I just need to be reading quietly in the same room as others.

This was how my best friend and I lived together during college – sitting on our couch reading books or scrolling through dating apps, periodically stopping to ask each other a question or grab a snack before resuming our independent yet harmonious routines.

So, when grad caps were thrown and she moved home to Australia, losing her felt more excruciating than a break-up.

“You’re abandoning me,” I half-jokingly said when I hugged her goodbye, fighting back tears. I am not meant to be alone and without you who understands. Wouldn’t Aristotle agree?

I grappled with how I’d approach my post-grad living situation. I felt protective of my other friendships after observing the reoccurring friend-to-roommate-to-enemy arch throughout college — relationships crumbled over petty fights over who always unloads the dishwasher or hogs the bathroom in the morning. 

Considering my options during senior year, when the air was filled with the newness of spring and the stomach-churning inevitability of change, an answer revealed itself: a listing for a one-bedroom apartment. 

And I asked myself: can I be alone?

“It’ll be a time to grow,” my mom assured me as I penned my signature on the lease nearly three years ago. I knew I was living a dream that she, and so many others, had fantasized about: the privilege to have a place all to yourself, with no other responsibilities detracting from your freedom. I was already looking back at college through a rose-colored lens; I knew one day, perhaps with a screaming toddler in tow, I’d ache for the silence of my one-bedroom home.

While I was somewhat skeptical of my capacity to live by myself, I thought back to when I was a wide-eyed freshman strolling through the streets of Brookline, desperate to escape the confines of my eighteen-story dorm. I gazed across the white brownstones and envisioned myself in one of those windows living in serene solitude, thumbing through pages of some sophisticated novel like “The Bell Jar” – the plotline unbeknownst to me at the time – while homemade sourdough sprung in the oven.

Little did I know that on a September morning just four years later, I’d be ripping stickers off new furniture and scrubbing the tiles of my bathroom shower, wiping away sweat from my forehead and tears from my eyes while Taylor Swift’s “Never Grow Up” echoed across the empty walls.

How adult it seemed that move-in day, to fold my clothes neatly in drawers and organize my cutlery in three even rows. And how young it seemed later that night, to sheath my face in acne cream and cry it all off while curled up in my cold, new bed. I couldn’t patter to my parents’ room; I couldn’t bury myself under a mountain of stuffed animals. All I could do was lay in the darkness and stare into the black hole of my open closet, wondering if monsters lived in there.

And I thought: I don’t want to grow up.

During the first few months of living alone, I couldn’t escape the void of my best friend. The evenings were the hardest, when I’d sign off work and shut my computer only to stare into my phone until I fell asleep, entrenched in an unfamiliar emotional emptiness that made me wonder if I should “talk to someone.” 

The silence depressed me. It wasn’t the silence of silence. It was my own silence. I was one of the two adults.

But over time, I adapted to the quieter homeostasis. I learned to play podcasts when I cooked dinner, to buy flowers for the kitchen table, to Taylor “Swiffer” – cathartically sing her songs while wiping my wood floors – and to light candles when I read in the evening. I was alone, but I was cultivating an untapped connection: with myself.

The apartment morphed from a desolate island into a calming sanctuary. Favorite prints covered the blank walls, and friends filled the empty chairs. I swelled with pride as I sliced fresh loaves of sourdough during dinner parties. And when guests left, I no longer cried curled up in a cold bed within darkness; I cried wrapped in blankets under streamed fairy lights. 

are we supposed to live together? 

Now, the fairy lights and wall prints are coming down. The air is once again filled with the newness of spring — mixed with a tinge of the hot urgency of summer — and the stomach-churning inevitability of change. 

When I move out of my apartment in a few weeks, I envision myself sitting in my own silence – one that no longer depresses me – as I sip a glass of wine amid my mountain of cardboard boxes. I’d flick through scenes of the favorite memories and loudest emotions and every goddamn spider I killed on my own within these four walls, noting that I moved into this apartment as a much weaker girl. 

It wasn’t easy, and it might not be by nature, but I can live alone.

As I close my chapter of living in solitude, a new page reads: my life branching out before me like the green fig tree. An old fig drops as I rip duct tape to seal the seams and scrub the tiles of my bathroom shower one last time.

Soon, I’ll crawl into a warmer, less empty bed — only to realize there will always be a dark closet where monsters live – but I can only accept it: the sadness and exhilaration of growing up. 

The branches of the fig tree stretch, and I’m ready to reach and pick a new one.