I Wrote this for you: to Women living alone in quarantine
Last night I went for a long walk through my neighborhood, down to the seawall and back. It was the first time I’d taken a walk by myself since the beginning of the Coronavirus quarantine. As a woman living alone in such an uncertain time, I’m finding new ways each day to become a better version of myself.
The sun started to set as I popped my earphones in and set out, unusually carefree about what time it would start getting dark– it’s getting harder to know exactly what day it is.
I think we’re somewhat conditioned to track time as a constant means of waiting for some future event– “Wednesday is hump day! That means only three days til the weekend!” We’re trained to hate Mondays because it means the start of the work or school week.
We wish away months with harsher weather conditions– “I just can’t wait for February to end, it’s so cold.”
But now our concept of time has been thrown into a blender.
Days, weeks, and months are passing by while we have no big weekend plans, while we don’t know what the future holds, while Monday’s afternoon looks the same as Saturday’s.
I don’t live in a bad neighborhood by any means, but I also don’t usually take liberty in being out and about past dark, unless it’s to drive aimlessly and blast Ted Nugent with my window rolled down. As a 20-Something single woman, I’m a little more careful about my surroundings.
Unless you consider Santana the Bunny as a roommate, I’m living alone. Considering how many times I’ve tried having conversations with him and gotten no response, I wouldn’t count him. What I’ve found while living alone is that conversations with even inanimate objects… happens. I talk to myself a lot, too.
I don’t have a husband, or boyfriend, and I don’t have any children tugging at my bathrobe asking me to play with them. I’ve lived alone for years, but the Coronavirus outbreak has changed many things for me.
Being this shut in, in many ways, has allowed me to open up.
How our routines define our days
Before the Coronavirus outbreak, I was self-employed full-time, booking photography sessions and pet-sitting and dog-walking clients. I was in a relationship, spending half my time at home and half my time at his.
I was finishing up my last semester in grad school, meeting with my advisor once a week to work on my Master’s thesis. I kept my daily schedule stacked from the moment I woke up to the moment I went to sleep.
Keeping schedules and a routine helped keep me accountable for getting my work done, for keeping me in check. If I set an appointment day and time, I followed through. Crossing out each item on my To-Do list gave me a sense of control.
Then, BAM. The world goes into a panic seemingly overnight. People are sick, gatherings are off limits, it gets worse each day. News reports are filled with death tolls and protests. And I learn new words like “Social distancing” and “Contact tracing”.
What happens when your routine breaks
I had to put the pause button on my business and clients– What will I do for work?
Events were cancelled– I need those for networking. Then, my school canceled the rest of the semester and graduation– I’m not walking across the stage to collect my hard-earned master’s degree.
In the glaring harsh light of day I was forced to examine myself from the inside, rather than defining who I am based on external titles– photographer, girlfriend, student. As distractions continued to break down, so did the illusion of control.
Then came the inevitable relationship question: Are you happy?
Nope. BOOM. It ends.
Check that Pause button again. Remember Freeze Tag— that game where whoever was It was able to touch and Freeze you wherever you stood, and you couldn’t move until a Free, untouched player freed you too?
You’d have to sit still and watch the game play out around you, and even though you had legs to move, you had to respect the rules.
That’s what this illusion of control is like. Even while you’re following the rules, even if you think you’re one of the fastest people on the playground, even if you’re in it to win it, there is still so much going on around you, and working against you.
You only really have control over your own body and how you handle the moment you’re forced to realize that.
This is what happened to me.
I became too busy running around, focusing on my next move, that I forgot to be present and consider whether I was even enjoying the game.
I realized this once I was forced to do nothing for a few days, and all I could do was eat snacks and binge-watch Netflix– but at the end of the night, I was left reflecting on where I was, and realized that even prior to a government mandated quarantine, I wasn’t making my own choices anyway.
I had a backseat in the vehicle of my own life.
There was certainly a mourning period when this all started. It’s perfectly human to mourn not being able to see your friends, to mourn your favorite restaurant shutting down, to grieve for the cancelled plans and lay-offs.
It wasn’t until my relationship ended that I was able to understand what I was really mourning while I thought I was just crying over a breakup. It was so much deeper than that: I had hated who I was becoming, and I didn’t want to sit with who I was.
I felt I was losing my sense of self-sufficiency, especially after the first morning I realized I hadn’t made myself breakfast in a while, or how I hadn’t made enough time to see my friends because I was working so much.
I was mad over career choices and how I didn’t even know the last time I made a decision for myself. Even when I had the freedom to go out to restaurants, I let my significant other decide what to order; I let him decide how I should spend my time; I rolled over and became too complacent. I think this happens a lot when we stop being present.
This self-isolation calls back our presence– a different kind of presence, though, than your best friend giving you grief over never RSVP-ing; it’s rather a presence from within.
So I turned the tables on myself. I said, “You are not going to see this isolation as a prison. This is a chance to meet yourself again, and to reclaim your independence, your strength.” I told myself it was OK that I had been lost for a while, and I flipped my, “Who am I?” to a “Welcome back.”
As my To-Do list slims down to a mere, “Eat breakfast, read, and get Lysol wipes,” my phone and Zoom app become my only source of communication between family and friends I wish I could visit in person. And I’m forced to be home– in the same studio apartment I’ve been living in for over three years now. It feels different, though.
The excitement of living alone
The prospect of living on my own was scary at first, but it soon became exciting after signing my first rent check (definitely not as exciting after the first 6 or 7, on).
Once I started putting my space together– picking out new furniture, decorating the walls with lights and artwork, putting all my belongings in their designated places like one massive puzzle– I stepped back and fell in love with my own independent mosaic, the creation of a space that depicted me.
I took pride in telling people I had quickly become totally self-sufficient. It was a new and invigorating experience, something to be proud of.
I filled my fridge with all my favorite foods and bottles of wine, I pooped with the door open so I could watch whichever episode of The Office was playing from across the room, I jogged in the morning around my neighborhood before work and bought a painting from the little old man selling them on the corner, I ate my peanut butter from the jar with my spoon.
And when I wanted company, I invited friends over for movie nights, or made dinner plans elsewhere– free to come and go as I pleased. I thought that this was my new normal, my new adulthood, my growth as a person and as a woman.
I could make these choices as I felt the need. Now, not only are my needs more restricted, but also is my ability to fill them.
In quarantine, this independent womanhood looks different.
How Isolation shapes living alone and loneliness
Now, I write small notes to myself instead of To-Do lists: Don’t forget to bring a mask for grocery shopping. Pick up hand-sanitizer. Now, leaving my home doesn’t feel as safe as it used to– even grocery shopping is exhausting. And I can’t see anyone I love unless it’s behind a computer screen. I’m isolated now, not free.
Perhaps though in this isolation we are called to find new freedom. A deconstructed version that strips away distraction to reveal the person we need.
I have good days and bad days– days where I don’t get out of bed until noon, even then having to force myself, days where I hate being so alone and slip into the old frame of mind of, what next? And is anything worth it? But other days, better days, I feel at peace. I am blessed to have a bed to sleep in, a working phone to talk to my loved ones, and I’m blessed to be healthy.
Living alone gets lonely at times, but it also gives you the opportunity to know yourself more intimately. Having less distractions means more time inside your thoughts–which, don’t get me wrong, is not always easy or positive.
There are painful memories that will resurface, unresolved conflicts, and difficult experiences you thought you were long-over, creeping their way back in the night like a bed bug infestation.
Distractions like busy work schedules and back-to-back Zumba classes or meetings can easily mask pains and issues we should be dealing with. Being alone has a way of breaking us down so we can rebuild honesty.
I can’t call up my girl-friend and offer to drown our sorrows in endless margaritas from our favorite Mexican Cantina. I can’t pack up my laptop and fly over to the 24-hour diner where they know me by name and I can type away until 3AM.
We can’t run.
I’ve had to ask myself many times during this, “How do I really feel about this situation? Am I really ‘over’ it?” And I realize I’ve been too distracted to approach determining the honesty in my answers.
And so what I’ve learned to do is to let even the negative emotions flow through me. If I’m having a really rough night and can’t pull myself together, I pick up my phone and call someone I love.
Either way, I’m getting better at recognizing what I need, what I can handle, and how various emotions feel, rather than numbing them out with social events or alcohol.
I’ve learned to face things like pain and uncertainty head on and bravely become a vessel for my own change.
I think we all could stand more time to consider what we need, rather than what we want– these two things are usually very different. And sometimes this realization requires losing what we wanted, or thought we wanted, to turn our focus to what we need.
Self-Care is my new routine
My health has become a priority. When I was working– over-working— I was also skipping meals, forgetting to eat, or making really unhealthy choices with what scarce time I set aside. Now, I’m grocery shopping more often for foods I can prepare meals out of, and I’m cooking and eating when I’m hungry.
As trivial as this may sound I’m taking care of my hair– I just recently learned what a deep conditioner is, thanks to my talented hair-dresser sister. Coming from someone who has gotten quite used to balling my thick wavy mane into a tight bun to wear all day, I now feel like a goddess stepping out of my shower and smelling like strawberry champagne.
I’m taking care of my skin with face masks, wearing little-to-no makeup, and moisturizing on a daily basis instead of whenever I realize I’ve been neglectful.
I’ve discovered a collection of nail polish I didn’t know I had, and after some test trials I found that midnight blue is my color. All of this is not to say that working and focusing on our appearance is most important. Self-care means you begin to cherish your body a little more than you were when you were before just barely nourishing it enough to pass as what the world deems “presentable.”
It’s about how you feel and the way you treat the physical space your soul inhabits every day.
” />My creativity is coming back
I’ve started writing more, journaling again, and I’m able to sit and focus on reading a book for longer periods of time than before the quarantine. I still struggle with where to put my energy during the day, as having less places to be also leaves me up to my own vices and responsibility of staying proactive with my time. But even this is a learning process.
Although I’ve been living on my own for a while, I feel like I am
just now learning how to truly be on my own. And, finally, reveling in
my own space.
Back in February, I took my ex to my favorite book store in Niantic. And I remember that while sifting through stacks of poetry collections, I said to him, “I don’t feel like a writer anymore. I miss it.” At the time, it fell from my mouth on impulse. But now I understand more of why I felt that way.
Remaining creative and focusing on my world as a muse has been my happiness and an important identity piece ever since I discovered how much I loved to write. Yet over time, and when presented with various distractions, I let those parts of me dry up. Creativity requires mindfulness in action. You can’t sit still and hope for the light bulb to appear.
Comparison is the thief of joy
I think that it’s important to remember that with the size of this health crisis, everyone is struggling in their own way. People have lost their jobs, lost loved ones, and have had to close businesses. These are people from all situations, too: families, single households, college students…
If you’re facing a single-living situation, you may find yourself scrolling through social media, envious of others’ company, or job, or the appearance of these others seemingly keeping it all together even in this whole mess. You may find resentment and bitterness seeping in as you see oddly timed celebrations and happy events.
STOP.
Stop comparing your situation to others; stop trying to guess who’s happy or sizing your situation up next to someone else’s. Stop second-guessing yourself. Living alone is not an unfortunate event– it’s an opportunity.
For as many negative connotations people like to place on living alone, there is so much power in embracing your independence and freedom to learn a little more about who you are in each season of your strong, single lifestyle– even this one. It’s OK to feel lonely some days, to feel unsure, and it’s equally OK to feel grateful that you’re the only person you need to worry about taking care of right now.
Learning to love your own company is beautiful. Understand and give yourself license to be human.
So, what is there to take away from this?
Some things, even in this climate don’t change. Thursdays are garbage nights where I live, and I’d started my walk at just about that time where people were lugging their garbage cans out to the curb. Children that probably once fought over the chore now race out for the weekly event.
Holy crap– This was the most socializing I’ve done in two months, just waving and smiling at strangers as I passed by.
It was rewarding to see full faces– mask-free –of regular people in regular clothes, going about their day no matter their situations. Never has a glimpse of normalcy felt so good.
I consider the masks I’ve worn. The protecting covering I wore even before this uninvited health crisis. I have found the courage to show my face and drop my mask. I am re-seeing my reflection with fresh open eyes.
It made me think about how the world is still moving. The sun is still setting on garbage night.
Every day that you wake up is an opportunity to be present, even if that means just feeding and grooming yourself inside the safety of your tiny studio apartment while your bunny munches on a piece of romaine you waited almost 30 minutes for in line.
It’s an opportunity to be thankful, maybe thankful you’re able to feel any kind of emotion, even loneliness, because it does– and will– pass. But don’t let it pass without absorbing the lessons. Times like this have much to show you.
