Sometimes I sit in cafés alone and people look at me like I'm missing someone. But the truth is I’m not waiting for anyone. I’m just there, existing. That’s what struck me the other night outside a little bake shop with pink walls and a quiet table under an umbrella. No phone out, no book open. Just a small cup of something warm and me being there. Being. I used to think solitude meant being broken, or unwanted. Turns out, it’s just another way to be whole, but without the noise. The table beside me was empty, sure, but so was the pressure to fill space with words that didn’t matter. That felt like freedom.
Underneath that feeling is something deeper. Solitude doesn’t just happen to you like some storm rolling in. It’s something I started choosing. The world keeps spinning, and I’m in it, but not always of it. There’s this black-and-white photo I took in a stairwell garden. A statue of a woman holding a jug, frozen in a quiet kind of grace. She doesn’t move, doesn’t speak, but she’s surrounded by life growing up around her. That’s how I feel most days. I’m not chasing anything. I’m not trying to fill silence with company or patch up every empty space. Solitude has become a kind of stillness where I get to hear myself clearly. And that voice inside isn’t always sad. It’s curious, thoughtful, sometimes even funny.
Choosing solitude doesn’t mean I don’t crave connection. It means I crave truth over noise. I walked past an old building the other day with graffiti covering its lower walls and rust bleeding down from its panels. It looked forgotten. But somehow, it stood strong against a moody sky. Like it knew what it was and didn’t care if anyone else did. That’s what solitude can do to you. It teaches you to stay standing, even when no one claps for you or checks in. It doesn’t ask for performance. Just presence. And that’s enough.
Everywhere I look, there’s this unspoken rule that we must always be surrounded to be okay. As if being alone is dangerous or worse, pathetic. But solitude is not loneliness. Loneliness aches for something missing. Solitude sits with what’s already here. It’s taken me time to unlearn the fear of my own quiet. To stop apologizing for not answering every text or not showing up to every dinner. I like people, I do. I just like myself more now. And that’s something solitude taught me when no one else was around to interrupt.
Finally, I’ll say this. I’m not special or brave for being alone. I’m just living. Sometimes with people, sometimes without. I breathe the same either way. The older I get, the less I want to explain that. I don’t want to convince anyone that solitude is magical. It’s not. But it is honest. And in a world that asks us to keep pretending, that kind of honesty feels like home. So if you ever see someone sitting alone, maybe they’re not lonely. Maybe, like me, they’ve just found a moment to be exactly where they are, without needing to be anywhere else.
All photographs and content used in this post are my own. Therefore, they have been used under my permission and are my property.
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