I was recently wasting some more time on instagram. I have to admit, their algorithm has definitely been improved, because what it has been suggesting, has mostly been content I’m genuinely interested in (tons of creative folks making things). However, it randomly showed me a woman who is making rather humorous videos about what people think living alone is like vs what it’s really like. And that led me to several other people also making videos along those lines. I could definitely relate to a lot of it!

My general premise here is that living along does not necessarily equal lonely.

First, let me just put out there that I’m sure there ARE people who are living alone AND lonely and that there can be many reasons for that (and many ways to help feel less lonely), but that’s not what the focus of this post is about.

I also think there are probably a lot of people out there who have never lived by themselves who might assume that a person who lives alone is always lonely.

My history…

I think back to the first time I lived alone to recapture some of the emotions there. I was 20 years old and I’d moved out of my parent’s house to a 1 bedroom apartment a few miles away from UCLA. My parents stayed a couple days to get me settled in, buy me some groceries, that sort of thing. And then they left. My first night all by myself was fraught with anxiety and emotion. There I was, utterly alone in a huge city, completely left to my own devices … no guidance, no supervision, nothing. I was technically an adult, but had never not had a “safety net”. To use another phrase, the training wheels were off.

Looking back on that, I can only imagine how my parent’s felt driving the 2.5 hours home that day. It was the start of a new chapter in my life and theirs. Years later my mom would tell me exactly how they felt that day and how they knew that they did their best to raise me and that as much as it hurt, they knew I had to spread my own wings and fly the nest.

I was by myself for 6 months and then a friend who had just finished culinary school in San Francisco and took a job in L.A. moved in with me. It would be several years before I ended up in another apartment, this time a small studio out in the valley and I was once again by myself (although I’d acquired a cat along the way). I’d already met Mario by this time as well, so occasionally he’d come by, but for the most part, my small studio was not the gathering place for me and my friends.

After that, I briefly moved in with a couple friends while I was transitioning to signing a lease with yet another friend on a 2 bedroom apartment back in west Los Angeles. That lasted about 5 years and then Mario and I moved down to Orange County and rented an apartment together.

So all in all, I had not actually lived alone for more than maybe a few years time ever since leaving my parent’s house at age 20.

Suddenly living alone…

This all got me thinking of the biggest reason I have now lived alone longer than I ever have in my life and how living alone and potential loneliness applies to widowed people… especially those who are widowed without children (or with grown children who have already left home prior to the person being widowed).

I remember returning home from the hospital after Mario passed away and just wanting to close all the blinds and curtains, lock all the doors, and cocoon myself away. Then after having done basically that, how utterly alone that felt. Yes, I had my two cats, but very conversation I had with them was decidedly one-sided. There were no other voices besides my own. There was no other human activity besides my own.

The newness of becoming a widowed person amplifies the aloneness. And that can certainly make a person feel utterly lonely… at least for a time.

Reframing “alone”…

One of the very first coping mechanisms I latched on to was reframing my circumstances. It’s absolutely mundane and feels wrong on a number of levels when likely one of the biggest, most emotional-roller-coaster events has just happened to you, but I think it’s that contrast that made it work for me (and probably others). It’s the same reason why advice to newly widowed people often includes things like, remember to eat.

You NEED mundane. You need something basic, not something that will cause more stress.

I wager that everyone who is or has been married has, at one point, been annoyed by their spouse. It’s human nature and it’s perfectly fine to admit that, even in cases when your spouse has passed on. It’s often something they did, or didn’t do. In my case, it most often revolved around some sort of house chore or cleaning. Like I would spend a bunch of time cleaning the whole kitchen, then Mario would breeze through an hour later, cook something, leave a whole mess on the stove and pile a bunch of dirty dishes (most likely with food still stuck to them) into the sink. It wasn’t a nuclear level event. It was one of those small annoyances of living with another human with their own proclivities, personality, manners and habits.

Well, as sad it it made me feel that he was not here, there would never be another incident of a Mario-caused mess in the kitchen. All messes would be my own. That’s a reframe.

Those early-days in my widow journey led me to a lot of other thoughts along those lines. Eventually, I realized a freedom that I never really even scratched the surface of back when I was in my 20s because I rarely spent time at my apartment when I was actually living alone.

And this is exactly what those videos I stumbled on over at Instagram were portraying. There is no judgement in your own house when you’re living alone. You make the rules. You have full say over everything. And yes, you can absolutely have some fun with that.

Are there times when I wish Mario was back here and I could have a conversation with him? Of course. Are there times when I do feel a little lonely? Yeah, but it’s a fleeting feeling for me. I enjoy occasionally having friends and family over. I enjoy occasionally cooking for friends and family. But now I 100% enjoy living by myself most of all. I am breathing in this sense of ease and freedom my own house affords me and I’m savoring it.

To be honest, at this point in my life (I’m past the half century mark on the age scale), I honestly do not see myself living with another person again. If it did happen, it would have to be under a very specific circumstance (like me and a few friends basically doing some version of “the Golden Girls” in our advanced old age or something). And also, to be honest, I feel like Mario’s presence can be felt now and then here. I honestly do not feel alone in a way that would lead to deep loneliness.

This property, and this house (which Mario and I chose together), is my happy place and I am perfectly happy here by myself (with my cats haha).