On Being Alone

While most people seem to find places they fit, I find that I just don’t fit anywhere perfectly or nicely. Maybe I simply refuse to fit anywhere. Or maybe I wasn’t meant to fit anywhere. Being alone can be quiet. It can be so quiet that is scares you. Other days being alone is painfully loud. Some days it’s so loud that you wonder how no one can hear it. But being on the outside of the world isn’t so bad. Some people think they know what it means to be alone. They assume that being alone is a voluntary act of choosing peace. They plan for it, schedule a day for it, and then they enjoy it when it arrives. Most people just don’t get it.

Being alone isn’t for everyone. It definitely takes an adjustment of self. There are days the silence makes me afraid. Afraid of not being heard. Afraid of not having anyone around. Even on the days I try to escape I know it’s not even worth the bother. Once I get swept up in its current it’s often easier just to follow with it instead of fighting against it. Maybe being alone is for the broken or maybe being alone is for the strong. Maybe it’s just easier to be alone. Maybe being alone is just easier than being misunderstood. While the world is lost in the noise of itself, I am lost in the noise within myself.

Being alone has brought me to terms with me. I spent so many years despising what no one else around me has understood. I have spent a lifetime wrapped in doubt. I’ve spent more time than I care to acknowledge in trying to make sense of not fitting in. I find myself re-tracing the steps I’ve taken, going back to where I’ve been. Though I have moved past the regret of staying too long in places not meant for me, I still try to find those signs I missed along the way. I wonder why I never saw them. I wonder why they went unnoticed. Even while in the wrong places my time was spent alone. I should’ve known that anything wrong could never be right. I should have paid more attention to the tug in my soul as it tried to move me out of then and into now.

Being alone keeps me at a distance from judgment. I know it will always be there because it’s always been there. Every day isn’t easy being alone and some days I wrestle it to the point of tears. I get caught up in the words that have been spoken so many times before. Words that have been given to me for the blame of what I’ve failed to become. For too long I was carrying so much weight of the words of those other people that never took the time to even know me. People do that – convince themselves of an idea of you without knowing you at all. As time passes, it gets easier to let go of their disappointment, their doubts, and their opinions. Being alone, it gets easier to be happy with who I am.

Being alone I know that I am not like them. People tend to move through life so simply. They call me difficult and I’m okay with that. It means I’m not the same as them. No matter who it was around me, I’ve always known what it meant to be alone and that I’d rather be alone. I’ve been alone for so long I often wonder why I hope that change will find me. I’ve been alone for so long that being alone is what’s simple for me. It gives me time to straighten out all of my pieces. All those pieces that I let other people leave a mess.

Being alone allows me to build my walls as high as I’d like them to be. Inside of my walls I can get as low as I want. I can cry as much as I want. Some days I do. Being alone gives me permission to do whatever I want. I can laugh as loud as I want. Some days I do. I remember how I used to hate that no one was trying to break those walls down. Being alone now, I enjoy the distance those walls give to me. They keep the world away from me. I find that I’m tucked away quite nicely.

Being alone isn’t easy for those that don’t understand it. But being alone is much easier to the ones that do. Being alone has allowed me to grow the most on my way to becoming. Being alone has always been my best friend and my own worst enemy. It’s chaos and sanity united. It’s hope and doubt combined. It’s knowing that I can live and still accept a life without – and it’s all mine.

~Kristi Lynn