Solitude

When was the last time that you spent a full day in solitude?

Notice I didn't say alone?

There is a difference, in my universe. In solitude, one can have Thomson's elegant sufficiency..

..." An elegant sufficiency, content,
Retirement, rural quiet, friendship, books,..."

In the quiet spaces of life, it may be easy to mistake solitude for being alone. Alone is ...without contact or connection with any other person important in your life. When my partner left our relationship....left the home we had shared, I wandered about these newly empty places wondering how on earth I would fill them. The feeling of a room newly bare....a bed too big.... how does one live with those and NOT feel, alone ? How does one reclaim a place so infused with the essence of another that what you see first is that which is missing, not that which is there ?

The answer is to not mistake solitude for being alone. In solitude we have the luxury of getting to know ourselves....rediscover, re-invent, re-think what it is we are....what it is we want to be.
And in this elegant sufficiency, we can allow our connections to others; to friends, to family - to remind us that truly...we are not alone.