I have been home alone for the past four days. Today, the fifth day, will be the last as my husband will be arriving home from his business trip by tonight. This is his second business trip since we’ve become empty nesters, and the second time I’ve stayed behind.
It’s the first time I’ve been home alone for several days straight. In my life. I’ve never lived on my own. When I was in college, I was sharing a dorm room with three other girls. When I was a young working professional in my early twenties, I lived in my parents’ house, in the house I grew up in with our long-time helper and her young daughter. Some years later, I started my own family and there had always been at least one other household member with me at home for the night.
BEING CURIOUS ABOUT BEING ALONE
It feels like an experiment, a blank page on which I could plan whatever I wanted, or not plan and see how things go. So what did I do during these days of being home alone? Of course, there were the routine housekeeping chores: cooking for myself, doing the laundry, cleaning, buying groceries, etc. There were my regular self-care habits: prayer time, exercise, reading time. I made sure to have some social time; I met up with two friends on different days to catch up, one over lunch and another over coffee. Throughout the day, I was sporadically exchanging messages with some close friends and with my husband. And of course, I had calls with my husband at night before our days ended.
TRYING OUT TINY CHANGES
Did I do anything differently? Not in any big way. One evening, I switched things up a bit by having my dinner earlier than usual and going for a run afterwards so I could enjoy the quiet and cool weather of an evening run instead of the usual late afternoon ones. I was able to give myself more writing time, which is great and is something I need to do whether or not I am home alone.
COPING WITH A LITTLE LOSS
Perhaps the only time I felt my aloneness keenly was when I would go to bed at night. These past days, I have been sleeping later than usual, finding myself going to bed close to midnight, reading until around 1:30 am, and finally sleeping before 2:00 am. When my husband’s around, I usually sleep before 1:00 am. I think my body and mind found it strange to not have my usual bedtime routine of having my husband next to me, not having my time to cuddle before my bedtime read, not having someone to say goodnight to.
HELPING MY POSSIBLE FUTURE SELF BY CARING FOR MY PRESENT SELF
This sliver of alone time, this tiny glimpse of living solo as a midlife woman and an empty nester has been interesting. It has had me asking myself, “How would I cope if I were truly living alone? How would my days and my nights go? How would I ensure that I am not lonely and that I will continue to have a sense of purpose and a practice of self-care and creativity?”
I think most things will stay the same: eat the salad and miso soup, have the tea with milk and sugar and have the chocolate; practice yoga in the morning and run in the evening; read the best fantasy book before bed and the beautiful poetry collection in the morning; chat with my friends online and catch up with them over tea and cake. And crucially, to keep me hopeful and purposeful, I will keep creating. Keep writing, keep working, keep contributing to the beauty and love in the world for as long as I can in whatever ways I can, big or small. I will stay open to how my identity will continue to change as I get older, whether I will continue to live with family until my last day or if I will someday be living on my own.
“How can I create harmony between my present self and my future self?” – Hal Herschfield, in the podcast A Slight Change of Plans by Dr. Maya Shankar
– Hal Herschfield, in the podcast A Slight Change of Plans by Dr. Maya Shankar
Want to know more about the idea of your future self? Watch or listen to this episode of the podcast A Slight Change of Plans by Dr. Maya Shankar where she talks with Hal Herschfield.