Okay so I’m not much of a people person. I like my space. A lot of space. Sometimes I think I should be upset because I don’t have a lot of friends or go out much socially. Aren’t people supposed to be lonely if they are alone? I’m not. Most of the time I am perfectly content with staying at home, comfortable in my own space – a fairly quiet existence (I say fairly quiet because I do have kids you know). When I was younger (ie before getting married) I was quite social and enjoyed going out with friends on a regular basis and even going places on my own in order to meet more people and build relationships. Thirty years later I prefer to be in a quiet environment, not worrying about people and relationships. There are things that occurred between the ages of 19 and 49 that have made me distance myself from others. A few times there were people who appeared to want to be friends who turned out to have a different agenda –  like selling me Amway products. Then there were friends / relatives that turned out to not enjoy my company because they felt inferior to me (I found out through other people). Romantic relationships ended up sour. My own husband confided in me that he would not have picked me out from a crowd but would have chosen my roommate. My marriage ended up badly – my husband turned out to be someone different than I thought he was. Now I doubt my ability to judge a person’s character and I never truly believe that people like me. So it is easier I suppose to be alone. At least when I am alone, I know that I won’t be hurt by someone else. Right? But as I sit here writing this I realize that it probably is not that healthy to limit myself out of fear. Yet the fear seems to control me and keeps me in my place. At some point I am going to regret not reaching out more – not pursuing relationships that could have been a positive thing in my life. I am not sure what it will take to get me to not be alone as much as I am. Maybe I need to listen to the Beatles song about Eleanor Rigby and how she dies alone and nobody comes her funeral. Wow – how depressing. For now though, I think I’ll go paint –  alone in my room – and enjoy the quiet. I really do enjoy the solitude – it makes me feel at peace. I’ll deal with the “loneliness” later.

08 Apr This entry was published on April 8, 2013 at 7:11 pm. It’s filed under Uncategorized and tagged alone, fear, friends, friendships, loneliness, marriage, peace, relationships, social, solitude. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.