Solitude is a dangerous thing. It can become so addicting to have you to yourself. To not have to think about someone, or be consumed by them. The moments and days I get to myself mean so much to me now, when they once felt like mere commercial breaks in the full programming of my life. They felt like temporary reprieves from my real life which involved people everywhere I went. It also heavily involved escaping myself and avoiding having to face me, everyday, in the mirror.
People are one thing, but take relationships for example. Is this the shelf-life of the hopeless romantic? Fleeting and intense? It’s not that I have given up on love, because I still believe in its beauty. I just have realized that looking for love and a soulmate are different things. It is almost too easy for me to love someone. To find the intrinsic, soul-deep goodness within someone. To pinpoint the cracks in their heart and what makes them smile. I think I fall for hearts more than people sometimes, and that is a dangerous thing because so many people have beautiful hearts. Even in their brokenness, their destructiveness, their reclusiveness, or their coldness. But, loving someone for their heart isn’t the same as loving them for just them.
Finding a soulmate is entirely up to fate. Someone who matches you in ways you may not even fully understand. Someone whose sharp edges match up with your soft lines, and whose brightness balances out your darkest fears. Someone who believes in you, values you and understands you implicitly. The truth is that a soulmate doesn’t love you for what you can do for them. They don’t simply love that you love them. A soulmate recognizes and adores you for exactly who you are. For who you make them become. For how they feel in your presence. For all the abc’s of the alphabet that uniquely combines to spell out who you are. For how you inspire them or push them or make their world better. It is therefore a phenomena that is far less common than love itself.
I also believe, quite controversially, that love isn’t something everyone is good at. Everyone’s natural capacity to love has either been eroded or expanded by the ever changing landscape of their life. And that means some people are too quick to love, while others avoid it as though it is a new covid variant. The run-towards and the run-away types both face issues in how they conceptualize, value and interact with love and relationships. This problem didn’t start with me or end with me, but I find myself having grown tired in participating in its perpetuity. Simply put, I am working on myself for a long time. Alone, thank you very much. And I am neither being persuaded or distracted from doing so in order to give myself time to both accept and address myself.
Warsan shire said, “my alone feels so good, I’ll only have you if you’re sweeter than my solitude.” And that encapsulates exactly how I feel right now. I am learning more about myself everyday and taking the time to heal my inner child. I am drinking from the cup of solitude so intently, that I don’t see anyone even matching that anytime soon. Of course, life happens, and I am still a reluctant—if very jaded— hopeless romantic. But life will just find me enjoying it mostly with me, myself and I. The strongest relationship I have ever had.
Me, Myself and Thine 