“My alone feels so good, I’ll only have you if you’re sweeter than my solitude”

I started 2020 much in the same way I ended 2019: spending four nights, mostly in solitude, in a jungle near the beach. Both these trips are the longest “solitude trips” I’ve ever taken. For someone who claims to be as independent as I do, I have actually always had a complicated relationship with being alone. I traveled alone, but often ended up tagging along with other travelers. I moved to cities alone, but often relied on roommates or partners for company. I rarely ever allowed myself more than a day or so without company. Perhaps my two biggest fears have always been loneliness and boredom, and that has left me often terrified of spending too much time by myself.

Before these last trips, I had marked smaller “solitude milestones”: in January 2017 in Havana, I lived for the first time in an apartment alone. In February 2018 in Oakland, I reached my first seven consecutive months being single. In May 2018 in Hawaii, I camped for the first time alone. But I had never spent four days traveling, intentionally not trying to socialize with anyone. 

Brazil is a particularly difficult place to travel alone, since so much of social life here is built around being with other people (My Brazilian friend has joked that if countries had Enneagram numbers, Brazil would be the extroverted 7). Most restaurants only sell 600 mL beers, meant to be shared in small glasses with a circle of friends. Most menus list dishes only available for “2 Pessoas.” I spent many evenings of my solo trips going from restaurant to restaurant, asking repeatedly “Posso pedir so para 1 pessoa?” Can I order this for just one person? Most of the time, the answer was no.

Surprisingly to me, on these trips, I hardly ever felt lonely or bored. On both trips, I spent maybe 5% of the time interacting with other humans in my hostel, the bus, the bar etc. Even when chatting with others was possible, I usually chose instead to read, or write, or hike by myself. Maggie Nelson wrote “loneliness is solitude with a problem” and during these trips, I could find few problems with my solitude. If anything, I felt pressure to feel lonely, more than loneliness itself. Often, I would think Maybe I shouldn’t be this okay with eating dinner by myself. Maybe I shouldn’t be this okay with three nights in a row in hammock, drinking a glass of wine alone and reading. Maybe I should be talking to the German female travelers in the hostel living patio. Maybe I’m missing something. Maybe I should be feeling less complete. But when honest with myself, I felt none of those things. I felt excited for company eventually, but also very content with the idea that it wasn’t here with me now.

Years ago, after reading Into the Wild, I remember clearly the last words Christopher McCandless (the young man who left everything and everyone to travel alone in Alaska) wrote: “Happiness is only real when shared.”

At that point in my life and travels, his words felt true. While hiking, my joy always heightened when I looked over my backpack, and the person next to me shared my same bright, energetic eyes, an expression that said “isn’t this view incredible?” Meals felt more meaningful when I could share an “Mmmm” with the person across the table as we took our first bite, clink our glasses to toast the taste. Exploring markets and getting lost in historic city centers felt more fun when mixed with jokes co-created with someone else, both of us sharing the same hilarious giddiness of trying to find our way through a foreign place. Around that time, I even wrote a blog post advocating for the value in NOT traveling alone: how traveling with others created moments I would have never otherwise experienced, conversations and ideas and perspectives only possible with others. 

I still believe those things, and at the same time, I realize now that if I counted the moments in my life when I felt most present, most at home with myself, most caring for myself, they would be my moments alone. They would be moments like this last trip in llha Grande when for a quick moment floating in the turquoise water, I could finally internalize just how proud I felt for everything I managed to accomplish this year. Or the moment when camping in alone in that Hawaiian beach at night, and the ocean was dark, and the waves crashed too loudly to hear anything else, and the stars began to peak behind the clouds, and my chest could finally feel the vastness of the world in each breath.

Happiness is real when shared—but that also assumes that happiness will always be shared. Solitude gives me the space to feel what can’t be shared; a happiness that is only mine. I needed solitude to be as proud as I felt that day floating in Ilha Grande, or as present as I felt while camping on that Hawaiian beach. Two years ago, I needed solitude in the Bay Street movie theatre when I first watched Ladybird, and saw the film affirm details of my adolescence that I had never shared with anyone. I needed solitude the night I took myself out to watch Valerie June perform, absorbed her music while nostalgically honoring every private memory it evoked from my life. In that moment, to have someone next to me experience something entirely different  — to shrug and say “She’s okay” and not understand — would have felt far more isolating than being there alone.

In solitude, the way I appreciate myself changes too. Entire days spent in my own head made me realize how activating I find my own thoughts, how much stimulation I can get from my own curiosity. I also looked at my body differently, now finally having the space to genuinely compliment myself: “Look at the lovely way your hair is growing out! Look at how strong your calves look after hiking!” “Look at this lovely dark brown shade your skin has returned to, just like when you were a kid.” In 2015, Leandra Medine told Paper magazine (but you should really just read all 25 quotes from The Cut’s 25 Famous Women on Being Alone): 

“When I’m left by myself and I have some time to be alone, that’s the time I have to recuperate and re-validate how I am feeling about myself. That’s always when I feel like I’m being given an opportunity to really start to love myself again.” 

During these days alone, I have found myself more capable of self-love than ever before, as I remind myself how much I genuinely enjoy my own company.

I notice how much I appreciate this capacity for solitude in others, too. When people love being alone, I don’t have to feel fully responsible for alleviating their loneliness. Their contentment in solitude also feels like a high compliment to our relationship: if they love being alone, then I am not generic company. The time they choose to spend with me then is an active choice, instead of the default alternative to being by themselves.

This week I remembered again that line I love from Warsan Shire: “My alone feels so good, I’ll only have you if you’re sweeter than my solitude.”  On these trips, my alone felt so good. Whatever my life turns into, and whoever I ultimately spend it with, these trips raised my standard of sweetness for company, and gave me a clear picture to remember when I doubt how good it can be on my own.