solo, sola, buena para tu salud (or, being alone is good for you)
i painted my nails today with an OPI polish in the shade, "alpaca my bags." with my skin tone, it looks corpse-like, weathered cement under a blue moon, humid desert morning over an airport tarmac. with a gel top coat, it's just gilded solitude. i wasn't a fan at first, but it's grown on me, much like being alone.
i have a special relationship with solitude. even in spanish, soledad, it means something different to me, but still special. it's a beautiful word--and a name for some. so-leh-dahd. i've spent a great deal of my life in solitude, for the right and wrong reasons, and lately, for the right reasons. i'm great company. is there still stigma on being alone, and liking it? well, yes, i still have my people, my friend group, chosen family, et. al. i just really like being alone. i appreciate days & nights in and out.
it used to scare me to be alone in any capacity, so much that the lines between aloneness and loneliness blurred. i misconstrued solitude as loneliness, and in turn, sought relationships--friends and SOs alike--just to fill a void. i realized feeling lonely was a part of a bigger issue i needed to unpack. and so i did, and am. now my apartment walls don't feel suffocating, nor do social gatherings feel anesthetic. some days i get too much into my head, but i'm more grounded than i care to admit. alone time can be a fix as much as a shoulder to lean on.
it's interesting how words like alone and solitude (solo, sola; soledad) carry loneliness in their meanings. context matters there, but it seems like a rite of passage in itself to learn the difference between being alone and feeling lonely (instead of being lonely and feeling alone).