Beyond loneliness

"Loneliness is the price we have to pay for being born in this modern world, so full of freedom, independence and our own egotistical selves."        

 - Natsume Soseki, Kokoro (a novel), 1914

Quoted in The End of Your Life Book Club, 

by Will Schwalbe

How contemporary is that?

There is lonely and there is alone. When Michael first began working and living in another state five years ago, I was terribly lonely - and it got worse when our youngest left for college in 2010, leaving me the only person in this house five days a week.

Somewhere along the way, I learned how to be alone without feeling desperate or incomplete. I'm still an enthusiastically social creature, as my Facebook activity attests. But I have also come to love my quiet home, walks with the dog along the shore or through neighborhood streets, the silent gaze of the waxing moon in an indigo sky after sunset. Alone, I can shed the armor of my ego and just be.