Something I'm glad I did my fair share of in life before settling down into marriage is living alone. I love my husband and can't stand being away from him, but man.....I did love living alone! I've always been highly independent and have needed and enjoyed my alone time. Even as a child, I would spend hours alone in my room playing by myself. Some people are just born that way I suppose.
A combination of attributes have made me this way: independence, introversion, creativity, and my old (but now mostly resolved) control freak tendencies. First off, the independence in me runs thick and deep, from going off to Spain by myself when I was 20 to moving to San Diego where I knew no one when I was 24 to my ongoing yoga retreats in the Berkshires. I simply love adventure, and certain kinds of adventure are better and more vibrantly lived and etched into your being when you embark on them as a lone wolf.
As a side note: I'm also convinced that I have some gypsy blood in me.....my maternal family did happen to escape Poland by being taken into hiding by gypsies so who knows.
Beyond independence, my creativity has contributed to much of my alone time. Since birth I have been painting, drawing, dancing, singing, making music, writing, photographing and simply creating my way through life. Those moments of creation, practice or artistic explosion are something that usually happen at odd times....and I throw myself into them chaotically and passionately. I've shared that with some people, but I mostly create on my own. It's just the way the way I work.
Lastly, introversion. In a nutshell it means that I am energized by inner reflection and depleted by interaction. This is quite different than being shy, which I would not call myself. I simply require an inner world away from crowds of people in order to survive and thrive.
The Writer by Heather Evans Smith
(Her dress is made of old books! LOVE!)
I've lived on my own several times, but the place dearest to my heart is my apartment in San Francisco (which I did share in the beginning, but then it was all mine:). I just found the pictures posted here, which was cause for my lone life nostalgia. I took these photos as I began to pack my apartment into boxes to move back East a year and a half ago. I can feel the quiet and the creation I experienced in that apartment every time I see a picture or just conjure it up in my head. It's a time in my life I will forever be grateful for....I know that I needed all those adventures and solitude before settling down.
Now it's time to live with the man I love and fill our house with loud, boisterous children (I'm guessing, if they are anything like us!). It's a new chapter....
This was taken when I was moving into apartment 304
My old car in my old neighborhood...oh Judah Street!
Ugh... I miss this place. I love this post.
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