What to Do with Solitude

Here I sit, in solitude. 

While it could be today, I actually I wrote the above sentence from my hotel room in Christchurch, NZ on Day 4 of 14 days of “managed isolation quarantine.” Self-quarantine is for sissies – MIQ was serious business in NZ. You didn’t open your door without a mask (I got reprimanded when I forgot that once!), and you were alone other than for short walks around a small courtyard at two meters from your fellow inmates, watched and monitored by NZ Defense Force soldiers in full uniform.

Is forced aloneness a true test of whether you can “do” solitude? I don’t have the answer, but I’m bad at solitude.

Choice or Circumstance The Cambridge English Dictionary defines solitude as “the situation of being alone, by choice or circumstance.” Someone would actually choose it? Not me. But in March 2020, Covid-19 served up the circumstance. 

I’m an optimist. I looked for and found Covid silver linings in 2020 and 2021. Overall, it was an insightful, productive, and growing time for me. Yet I raised my hand a few times to cry, “Solitude fatigue!” With a dash of optimism fatigue, if I’m honest.

However, whining does nobody any good. During peak Covid I certainly did vent! Didn’t most people? I missed our daughters, my friends who live all over, and my ability to move around freely and live life with all of them. I consoled myself that at least I spent lots of quality time at home in 2020 with my husband. Then solitude sprung up again this year in March:  he flew out to New Zealand for a work venture, forcing us to spend four months apart. No more quarantine buddy.

Gift for Extroverts? I’ve heard that introverts thrived during Covid quarantine. The poet-naturalist Thoreau said, “I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.” Well, how nice for him. I admit, solitude can create an opportunity for rest, self-awareness, reflection, self-discovery, as well as personal, spiritual, professional, and emotional growth. Science suggests it also boosts creativity and productivity. But what do you do when people are your lifeblood? I have to work hard to tease out the blessings of solitude. A few of my Good Things that Happened in Quarantine List? Learning new skills like running Zoom breakout rooms, getting stronger on my mountain bike, and supporting women entrepreneurs over age 50 via the Revel platform.

If I had to choose When offered the choice, I choose people over solitude. And yet, I had to learn to take on solitude yet again. I also have a say in how I view it. Time in solitude is nonetheless living. Life doesn’t pause to let us decide if we want or don’t want solitude in that moment. Especially the unforced kind.  

After leaving MIQ and reuniting with my husband here in NZ, I embraced the freedoms in a zero-Covid country:  Maskless hugs! No social distancing from your fellow man! It felt so…normal. For two weeks.

I wrote this originally in week four of full lockdown in Auckland after Covid inevitably slipped in to NZ. Solitude again. And lockdown lasted five months - couldn’t leave the city. While I didn’t like it one bit, I reminded myself, “This is still my life, lockdown or not.” I choose that.