There is nothing more uncomfortable than spending time on my own. I have turned avoiding it into something of an art form — always listening to music, watching a video, a series, a film, anything that fills the silence before it gets the chance to say something I am not ready to hear. I do not think I am unique in this. I think most of us have our version of the noise. Mine just happens to be very loud.
Last weekend I somehow did it. Not by choice, to be fair — forced by outside context, as the best changes usually are. I was away with my best friend, who had a conference to attend, and I had tagged along mostly for the change of scenery. When she disappeared into her work day, I was suddenly left with something I rarely give myself: an entire, unscheduled day with no one to answer to. Including myself.
I woke up at 7 am and, instead of reaching for my phone, I got up and went to the spa. Felt really rich, not gonna lie. I love water — always have — and there is something about being submerged in it that quiets the noise in a way nothing else really does. It is hard to spiral when you are floating. I had breakfast at the hotel after, slowly, without scrolling, without a podcast playing in the background. Just food, and a window, and the strange novelty of my own company.
I decided to be a tourist and went to the museum. There is something particular about experiencing art alone — no one to check in with, no one whose reaction you are half-watching instead of your own. Just the stillness, and the beauty, and the strange luxury of lingering in front of something for as long as you want without feeling like you are holding anyone up. I spent an hour immersed in a world that had nothing to do with algorithms or productivity or what I should be doing with my life. It felt almost rebellious.
The architecture of the building alone was worth the visit. Walking through it, I felt like I was inside a castle — the kind that reminds you that humans have always been capable of extraordinary things when they are not in a hurry.
Next, I searched for a coffee place nearby and made myself go in and sit down alone. This one was harder. Sitting in a café on your own, without a laptop open as a prop, without a friend across from you, feels oddly exposing — like everyone can tell that you are a person who is by themselves and somehow chose it. Which is ridiculous, obviously. No one cares. But I do, or I did. I am the kind of person who has always felt the need to be surrounded by people in order to feel like enough. Solitude, for me, has often read as rejection — of others, or of myself, I am still not entirely sure which. Maybe that is why I find it so hard to let go of relationships long past their expiry date. When you are afraid of being alone, you hold on to things that are not good for you just to avoid the silence. But that, as I said, is a topic for another day.
I ordered a kombucha (very hipsterish for a millennial, I know), found a corner seat, and read for two hours. Two actual hours. No guilt, no to-do list nagging at the edge of my brain. Just a book and an afternoon and the quiet hum of strangers around me.
In the afternoon I grabbed a panini and sat on a bench in the park. People watching is genuinely one of the great underrated pleasures of being alive. I am obsessed with it. Every person who walked past was a whole universe — a set of problems I will never know, a love story I can only imagine, a Tuesday that meant something completely different to them than it did to me. I invented lives for all of them. The woman with the red coat was definitely going to meet someone she had not seen in years. The man walking too fast was late for something he both dreaded and needed. Maybe I am projecting. Maybe I am a little bit unhinged. But at least I am free, hahah.
By the time I got back to the hotel that evening, I realised something had shifted. The discomfort I had been so sure would find me never actually arrived. What arrived instead was a kind of quiet I had been running from for a long time — and it turned out it was not frightening at all. It was just mine. It had always been mine. I had simply never stayed still long enough to recognise it.
Maybe the fear of being alone is really just the fear of what you might discover when the noise stops. And maybe what you discover, if you are lucky, is that you are actually pretty decent company. I was. I might even do it again — on purpose this time.
I’m glad you found that at the end! I see so much in my life in your writing. You’re not alone. I may be far away, but I’m a message away.