I, along with the numerous online personality quizzes I have taken, would label myself as an extrovert. Every day, I seek out some kind of spontaneous new adventure or social interaction. In high school, if I was made to stay inside for a day rather than go out and spend time with my friends, I would feel sad and removed. When looking ahead to college, I would longingly imagine the freedom to go anywhere, anytime, with anyone. I thought to myself, I will never have another boring, lazy day in my life.
For college, I chose to attend school 930 miles away from home. Away from my family, my friends, and everything I had ever known, college would mark the start of an entirely new life for me with new places to visit, new people to meet, and a new routine to adopt.
When I first moved into school, it quickly became my norm to spend every hour with my three new roommates. We’d spend our days laying out in the sun on the school’s green and spend our nights going out and having fun. I continued with this new-to-college routine for about a month before responsibilities steadily crept in. Classes started picking up on their workloads and I recognized that I needed to cut back on surrounding myself with friends all the time. Sadly, this meant I would have to experience the worst thing imaginable for any extrovert: the Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO).
While my friends continued to find times to hang out throughout the day, I removed myself in order to complete my work. I loathed the idea of all my friends together without me there. The way I saw it, I was alone and they were making memories together, growing closer without me being present. Even though I still saw my friends every day, when I was present, I still felt detached and stressed about any unfinished work. I dramatically decided that I had become that boring person in college that I never wanted to be, leading an empty life filled with work.
As I routinely recapped my day with my boyfriend one night and shamefully admitted to him that I had done virtually nothing all day, he responded by telling me that a day spent alone is not necessarily a boring one. I reflected on this and decided that he was right. If I was to be spending this much time alone with myself, then I might as well learn to enjoy it.
I began a journey of getting more comfortable with being alone. I thought the best way to jump-start this process was to include activities that I enjoyed with others into my alone time. First, I decided to switch up my work location every day as an ode to my love of exploring. Once I started doing so and discovering pretty new spots around campus, I realized that I started to enjoy leaving home to do my work. I felt like the main character in a coming-of-age film every time I walked across campus to the beat of my music, unearthed a charming place to sit and began studying. Essentially, I learned to romanticize the small mundane tasks of my days.
This ideology spread to other parts of my life, like running errands alone, walking myself to class and even eating a meal by myself. I was having fun all alone and finally appreciating my solitude. I quit viewing being alone as a punishment or necessity and started viewing it as my own choice. Now, I choose to go shopping alone. I choose to treat myself to my favorite snacks and drinks. I choose to set up a picnic blanket for one. I choose to spend time with myself.
Learning to prioritize my time alone and connect with myself was the most healthy and mature decision I have made in my adult life. I now look back and laugh at my melodramatic behavior towards being alone.
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