“How can you live alone?”
What breaks my heart when I hear someone say, “I don’t know how you can live alone,” is the hidden assumption behind the words that my home is somehow a prison of inescapable torture or overwhelming loneliness and despair.
More than once in the last 5 years someone has told me: “I don’t know how you can live alone.” The person saying this always has roommates or a partner or a spouse or a family and they have a routine together that this person cannot imagine life without. But that’s not everything that is communicated by stating an experiential ignorance to a household of solitude.
Perhaps I was more inspired by Superman growing up than I consciously realized but, since the beginning of 2017, other than a few periods lasting no longer than 1–6 months I have lived in a fortress of solitude of my own making. Though I am not completely alone (I have two cats and many plants) my home is a space that is mine and I am responsible for it. As such, I am careful who I invite into my space because it is a place of rest for me.
What breaks my heart when I hear someone say, “I don’t know how you can live alone,” is the hidden assumption behind the words that my home is somehow a prison of inescapable torture or…
