How did I go from cherishing solitude to fearing it?
I have a faint recollection of how much I enjoyed spending time with myself; this was even before I knew it was termed ‘solitude’. When my elder sister moved to another city after completing her schooling, a part of me was secretly happy because I finally had the room to myself. In fact, on evenings when my parents stepped out, my happiness knew no bounds. Frolicking around the entire house, lost in thoughts, nobody to talk to but myself, singing aloud – I couldn’t wait to grow up. Baby me thought adulthood meant a never-ending subscription to such premium moments. But who was to tell her that life was waiting just around the corner?
You know what’s the irony here? Not the fact that I now yap away on random phone calls – calls made to even more random acquaintances who didn’t even want to play catch-up in the first place. The irony is that I pay a hefty chunk of my monthly income to live alone. Why, you ask? Because living with people means no personal space and living without people means personal space that I cannot handle. So, anything, and I mean, anything that helps me shut out the thoughts in my head, helps me drown my own voice, works perfectly well. A blaring song that I low-key don’t even want to listen, a trending Instagram video, a movie whose dialogues are now an integral part of my memory, small talk with the nosey aunty next door… hell, even a TedX speech on ‘loving yourself – I’ll listen to anything but myself.
Sounds familiar, right? Yeah, solitude ain’t for us.