It’s been 82 days since I’ve had any real semblance of true moments alone.
By alone, I don’t mean psuedo-roommates left for a weekend, friend went to the market, slept in a room separate from another person, or walked home alone from the office. No, those are moments of solitude when you can find ephemeral clarity in an otherwise hectic world.
Today is Day 1 of my own apartment, and a return to this state of mind and being.
Alone is when you wake up and there isn’t anybody else that your day intertwines with for the foreseeable future. You can shower and dance around the room naked while singing (not that I do, per se) your favorite pop songs with zero possibility that your embarassing moment of rejuveniation will be interrupted. Staring out the window or at the ceiling for an hour doesn’t yield awkward silence, it’s just spending time with yourself. And, if you want to eat breakfast at 14.00, you can—but you should probably still do the dishes before it gets too late in the day. That’s just a best practice for life.
I’ve also recently tried to distance myself from the notion of being “alone and lost” by shifting into a mindset of “solitary wanderlust”, a subtle but significant difference. But, I’ll admit, I still dabble in the former, best expressed in this project of mine from 2010.
—
.一人.혼자.ALONE.
the world *outside* leaves us cold.
we go to a place *isolated* not only from others, but from ourselves.
free to let the mind *wander*, the *struggle* to let time pass becomes a *journey* unto itself.