The Art of Loneliness

I hate being alone.

No really, this is probably my idea of hell: to be by myself, with no contact with others for all eternity.

...and there would be bugs.

I know God said "It is not good for man to be alone," but I have come to realize through my relationships with those in the world that call themselves "introverts" that alone-time can, for many, be valuable and energizing. This, however, is rarely the case for me as I quickly lose motivation and focus when left on my own for too long. It's just who I am. I thrive off good company. Note that this does not mean I constantly want to be in the company of just anyone, but a phone call or visit with a close friend or family member can mean the difference between a clean house and happy day or a Netflix marathon and week-old dishes rotting in the sink.

You can understand then what it means to me to be married. Aside from the obvious benefits of living with my favorite person in the world, at a very basic level, it means I do not have to live alone. I think God blessed me abundantly when He gave me Andrew, but He also just blessed me to give me anyone at all (to be clear, this does not mean I would have married anyone to escape my worst nightmare of loneliness, but it sure was convenient that I got to go straight from a college house full of friends to a home with my best friend). Basically, I hit the jackpot all around.

However, life is not meant to be constant heaven on earth, and the downside to marrying Andrew is that, while we have had such a happy time together thus far, we are so often not together.  Andrew's job is demanding, with constantly changing schedules and lots of time away from home. This means that I often have to be alone.

This began early in our marriage when, a few days after our honeymoon, he had to leave me for a week. I was by myself, in our new house, on a country highway in the middle of nowhere, with no near neighbors, in a new town and state, and it terrified me. The days were bad enough, but the nights were infinitely worse. I didn't know all the sounds of our house at night, so every little noise made me jump. Moreover, I have a vivid imagination that would inconveniently recall every scary scene from every scary movie I've ever seen at the worst moments. Suffice it to say that that week was a struggle which I made it through thanks to an impulse-buy puppy, Redbox, our friend Shawn who gallantly kept me company two of the evenings, and the hope of a positive pregnancy test. But I made it through, and I would make it through more nights like it when Andrew was out in the field over the next year and a half, though I don't think any were quite as bad as that first week.

It wasn't just the times when Andrew was away overnight that were difficult. For several reasons, I did not get a job when we were first married, so I had to learn to fill entire days by myself. I had a hard time not feeling like a useless vegetable, sitting around all day until he came home from work. After the insane busyness and built-in social life of college, this was horrible for me. I am very good at handling a tightly-packed schedule, late nights, many demands on my time. I actually get a bit of a high off conquering the stress, but I have never had to be productive in empty days, without company. In this time, I did my best to eat healthily for the sake of the pregnancy and keep the house clean, but so many days I failed at what you would think would be so easy. What I learned about myself was that I would rather do pretty much anything than be alone.

My saving grace was Andrew coming home from work, happy to see me. That and knowing that I was growing a baby inside me who would some day keep me busy and keep me company. I don't know that I ever got very good at being alone, but I tried. By the end of our time in that house I had decorated most of the rooms, established budget/grocery shopping/meal routines, prepped for the baby, taken some college music classes, and mostly maintained my sanity. I wasted hours and hours of time, but I taught myself how to function without the safety of a tightly-packed schedule, and it was psychologically so much harder than the craze of college life ever was.

Now I'm five months into a 6-8 month deployment. That's 142 days of no Andrew coming home at night, and yes, I have cried a lot of those nights...I'm also pregnant again, so I blame at least 50% of my breakdowns on hormones. I'm growing a baby, give me a break! I have learned how to establish a routine, to reach out to others and make sure I get the people time I need throughout the week, and most importantly, thank God for family. God graciously gave me the tools I needed to make it through this deployment. I live in a basement apartment, below extended family, I am 15 minutes away from my parents' house, and I now have a hilarious, interactive one year old to keep me busy and entertained. Nevertheless, I have struggled hard through these months, mostly in the evenings when I realize that I don't have someone coming home to share my day and bed with.

"So you're alone," you say, "But it can't be quite hell, what about the bugs?"

 Did you not read that I live in a basement?

Haha ok, that's enough of my 3am humor.

One lesson I learned in college was the value of self-knowledge, and I think that's partly why I find personality tests and analyzing my temperament so interesting.While discussing these tonight, my brother-in-law informed me that the Myer's-Briggs test was devised partly to enable us to understand the weaknesses in our character in order to become more well-rounded. It suddenly hit me that my most pronounced characteristic, my extroverted-people-needingness would be the hardest for me to change and overcome. I then had an "aha" moment when it became clear that God has already been working on that these past two years and that I can see the real fruit of this time spent learning to be alone. I still hate it, I'm still not good at it, but I have done it. I have overcome some of the fear of it, and I have learned the skill of accomplishing daily tasks while out of my comfort zone. I don't know what this means for my future, but I am happy that even just by living everyday life I am growing, expanding my horizons, and drawing closer to reaching my potential as a human being.

I'm also happy that this time apart from my Andrew is nearly over. I'm sure there will be other challenges up ahead, but hopefully we can face them together, which of course, will be an adventure in itself.