Alone is Calm.

Alone is calm. Alone is being somewhere with nothing other than your own thoughts, able to hear the things that you often intentionally block out with meaningless conversations and loud music and well-attended parties. Alone is listening to the things you have to say to yourself, giving time to the more important reflections of life that you often allow to settle in the back of your mind like a fine dust swept under a rug.

Alone is eating dinner for one, taking the time to savor each dish instead of having its flavor interrupt you as you try to carry on your conversation. It is reading a book in the corner, undisturbed by everything else going on around you, happy to exist in a scene where the only partner one needs is the soft din of conversation around you. Alone, the feeling of the satisfaction of selfishness, the refreshing reprieve from having to take others’ concerns into account, happy in the knowledge that no one is there to interrupt you in the conversations you have with yourself. However, it should not be confused with loneliness. Loneliness, I think is allowing this freedom from judgment to take root in your life, to become a reason to let things go. It is losing perspective of other people to the point that your entire world narrows down to you and exactly what you’re doing in that moment. Loneliness is wanting a sounding board for all of the things you have discovered on your own, the things you want to confirm with the comforting reality of hearing another human being speak them aloud.

Alone is walking along a street, just you and your city, taking things in that you often don’t take the time to appreciate when you’re busy with life. It is allowing your senses to be your company, talking to you with a million different voices of how good this smells or how wonderful that feels. It is taking the time to soak in your surroundings, instead of just existing blindly within them. I have come to an understanding that even though people are happy in their beautiful lives, deep inside they are lonely. In time I have learned that people come and go, things change, time flies but the only thing that stays with one is one’s conscience, and to protect one's sanity, one needs to make peace with one's loneliness. 

I have realized that it doesn't really take much of an effort to be happy when you are alone, unlike when you feel lonely despite surrounded by the people who have too much to offer and have their opinions about everything that is under the sun, and you are simply not interested.