There’s a particular kind of sound that fills my home.
It is not empty.
It echoes gently against the coffee mugs, wraps around the lazy hum of my ceiling fan, and settles beside me on slow mornings. It does not isolate, but envelopes. It does not haunt, but holds.
For a long time, I mistook solitude for loneliness. I imagined a quiet home as a sad home. I pictured empty plates, one-sided conversations, a bed too big for one. I assumed there would be a longing, like something was missing.
But then I began living alone. And the ache never came.
Instead, what arrived were soft mornings scented with the perfume I had put on the previous night. Evenings welcomed by burning cigarettes wrapped around my lips. A refuge? Maybe. In being alone, I found companionship. Not from the outside world, but from within.
The first movie night alone? I paused the film halfway through, not sure if I should laugh aloud. The first rainy Sunday with no plans? I nearly called someone just to fill the space. But slowly, those moments softened. They were not gaps waiting to be filled, but were pauses to be savoured.
Living alone became less about independence and more about intimacy. I didn’t have to explain why I take showers at the end of the day and not in the morning. Or why I bought yet another pair of shoes. Or why I chose to eat breakfast on the floor, instead of at the dining table.
Every little habit became a love note to myself.
I learned how I liked my eggs and not how someone else made them for me. I learned what music played best at 4 PM when I am working and the sky turns golden. I learned that I love recording myself singing because my voice is gentler than I remembered.
There is no way one can match building a world around your own preferences, your own pace, and your own presence. People often confuse the two. Loneliness is the ache of absence. Solitude is the presence of peace.
Living alone did not teach me how to be without others. It taught me how to be with myself. How to celebrate my company instead of enduring it. I no longer fear coming home to an empty space. Because it is not empty. It is full. Of my scent, my clothes, my stories.
I don’t need constant conversation to feel heard. I don’t need someone else’s footsteps to feel secure. And I don’t need company to feel connected. It is so romantic, a slow-burn kind of love.
It is in the way I pour wine into a glass just for myself. In how I sing to myself while folding laundry. In how I make my bed just right. Living alone has been the grandest love story I have ever experienced.
To choose yourself, over and over.
To show up for your needs, however small.
To hold space for your own joy, and your own breakdowns.
That, to me, is love in its most naked, bare form.
So no, I am not lonely.
I am in love, and I am loved by the version of myself who finally knows how to live.
This is living fully, finally, and only with myself.
