you’re alone

I have a few friends who are recently moving around the country, almost in concentric ways from one another. Many of these people do not know each other for I am the only tie between them. And I am watching them make the same kind of drives and sacrifices, actions as familiar to me as my own blood.

It is impossible, I think, to ever give anyone advice. And I was advised once to be wary of any advice given to you. Circumstance is everything. 

What I do know is I never learned as much, or felt as much, as I did the first time I was truly alone. It is not to say we as a people cannot grow or learn in the company or love of others. But there is something definite in the growing while alone. It is almost visible day after day, you can say I am different than yesterday simply because yesterday happened. It shows on your bones in the very places where you ache while alone. Suddenly, everything is an adventure. 

But what then when you are not the one moving, starting over, embarking, changing. Are you then condemned to grow inch by inch, never noticing until much later? Is it possible to grow like you are alone while you are not? Or is it a kind of pain and lesson saved only for the bravest of times, an almost reward for giving up and getting on with it all. Behind door number one is, everything. 

Alone or not, for the day for the year, for the moment– it is essential to sit alone as if you are the only person on this earth. There is no greater partner in this life than the you you already know, and they are far more interesting that you give them credit. And there is so much to learn from them they have known you all your life, and every deviant thought and secret and desire and paranoia. 

If you are one of my brave travelers and movers, know even on the darkest of afternoons this is the best thing you have ever done. And if not, then make the effort to spend an entire day alone, speak to no one beside yourself. And tell me then how, how do we still grow if we are not alone?