Rainbow Child

It’s not easy, it’s not easy at all being alone. Yeah, you’ve got independence, you can be as selfish as you want, but it’s still not easy. You wake up in the morning and think: ‘I’ve got a full day ahead of me, just me myself and I. What should I do today?’ And you have to come up with one-person activities. When you cook you put on music cause otherwise the kitchen is too silent. When you read you must not think that it would be so great to have someone reading by your side; so you make yourself a cup of tea and pretend that’s your friend.

You have to learn not to depend on others but without ending up a loner. You go out with friends, you feel good, but then you know you’re going to end alone in your apartment and you have to be OK with that. So you buy a chocolate on your way home, you think about things to do, you watch a movie and you forget about the alone part.

And it’s always awkward telling people that you do things alone, that you go on trips alone. ‘Why don’t you go with a friend?’ Because my friends have their own lives and most of them don’t have as much free time as I have. ‘Oh, but why don’t you find yourself a boyfriend to do stuff with?’ Because I don’t want a boyfriend just because I don’t have anyone to do stuff with and good guys don’t just grown on trees. ‘But do you like doing things on your own?’ See, this is something that you learn through hard years of practice. Some are really good at this, other still have a long way to go. But yeah, I don’t mind this anymore, I’m used to it. ‘And don’t you feel alone?’ Heh, I’m always alone.

I always take a book with me so as not to be alone. If I’m eating by myself in a restaurant I have the book in front of me and read from it. Or if I’m waiting for someone I take my book out of the bag and start reading. It gives me a feeling of being with someone. And everything is fine and dandy until someone has to shout it out in your face that in fact you’re alone, it’s no point hiding behind a book.

I don’t know why people dread being alone. It’s hard work, but in the end it’s not that bad. At least now you don’t have to postpone going somewhere because other people can’t join you. You don’t have to put up with other’s bad temper, stupid ideas etc. You are your own master; you can do whatever you want, when you want.

Being alone is a social status, just like being in relationship, being married, being divorced are. It shouldn’t be a shame that you are alone, people shouldn’t look at you pitiful. Not all of us are equipped for being in a relationship, that shouldn’t be hard to understand or accept. And not all of us accept being in a relationship only because “we have to be”. I don’t think there’s something wrong with me if I think about myself as a future spinster. And why should that be?

People can’t possibly be by your side all the time, so I’m happy that I’ve learnt how to be there for myself. Alone people are not that bad