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Student Independent News

NUI Galway Student Newspaper

Opinion: Getting to know me by being alone

February 10, 2019 By SIN Staff

By Olivia Hanna

There are some people in the world who can’t stand to be alone. They find silence claustrophobic and ache for company to quell their unease. I have never been one of those people.

As an only child, I became well versed in the language of loneliness at a young age. And when I say lonely I don’t mean it in a sad sense, but as a matter of fact, I was alone a lot and it was okay. I learned to entertain myself and to be content doing so.

I created universes by myself when I was little, where I was a prima ballerina or a fabulous princess or a Broadway actress. I found games that could be enjoyed solo and evolved into a slightly older girl who never felt alone between the black and white pages of a good book.

I enjoyed my time with friends as most people do, but I looked forward to the quiet moments afterwards where I could just be myself: uninterrupted.

It wasn’t until college, when I first moved here to Galway, that I was fully immersed in the feeling of ‘aloneness’. As a kid I wasn’t alone for more than a few hours at a time. I would be in school for the majority of the day with friends, or on weekends eventually be called for dinner. After moving to a different country away from any one I knew, I began to live for days without much contact with anyone who mattered to me.

I coped through music, food and brief calls to my friends and family at home, but at a certain point I had to change my perspective. Being alone wasn’t just being alone, it was about getting to know myself more intimately then I ever had to before. In a strange way I had to become my own friend. I learned to embrace some of my quirks and flaws and celebrate the things I was good at. Eventually, I began to make myself laugh at my own jokes.

These days, almost three years into living and studying abroad, I’m still adjusting to being lonely. I have a great boyfriend who I only go a maximum of 24 hours without seeing, but as far as people I see regularly in Galway, he’s pretty much it. There are days when I go without talking to more than one other person, or no one at all.

Sometimes it’s the best feeling to interact with other people, but most days I love being left to my devices and learning more and more about what makes me, me.

Image: Chrissi Nerantzi via Flickr

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Filed Under: Opinion Tagged With: Aloneness, Loneliness, Olivia Hanna, Solitude

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