the silence

I wonder sometimes if I spend too much time by myself. I am well-practiced at being alone, I've done it (both successfully and not) for a large number of years; sometimes by choice and sometimes not. You learn how to do things by yourself; eating out, going to the movies, going shopping, going to conventions, going to weddings, going to family functions, going to concerts ... the last (read as both previous and final) time I went to Lollapalooza I went by myself and was questioned by a couple of millenials who thought I was a cop because I was there by myself, and then they went on to tell me how they couldn't do something like that by themselves, because validation I guess? because milennials? or because they're not losers? ... going and doing lots of things without any sort of companionship. I like to tell myself it's a good thing to learn how to do stuff by yourself, it somehow makes me a more self-reliant person. That's assuming I'm even semi-successfully doing it.

If I have one gripe about it all it is that the silence can be intolerable. To clarify, this is about being alone, not lonely; lonely is something to be discussed another day. One can be alone without being lonely, and one can be lonely without being alone. I can go, and have gone, days without saying a single word to another person (cat not included), and while I can be content with not having contact with other people for extended periods of time I know that I'm overall happier if I do. I like talking to people. That's part of the dilemma of being an introvert, the line that each one of us must find for ourselves, the boundary between healthy solitary self-recharge time and unhealthy isolation. That line moves and sometimes it's hard to find it again. The associated silence can be both healing and frustrating. 

At some point having conversations with yourself gets old; at some point talking to the cat gets boring; at some point the white noise the tv or the radio or the internet provides is insufficient; there's only so much quiet time that anyone can handle. Another person's voice can be a comforting and soothing thing, and at times the silence makes me desperate for a little comfort.