An Experiment with Aloneness, the happier cousin of Loneliness

TW: If you are currently experiencing loneliness, consider approaching this piece gently and at your own pace.

For as long as I can remember, solitude has been my quiet companion. I grew up inside my head, wrapped in a cocoon of imagination. My memories are less about what happened and more about how I felt, how my inner world perceived the outer one. This detachment from external events slowly shaped my reality, one where solitude was not just a situation but a state of being.

Yet, like most human hearts, mine craved connection. As I grew older, I sought the warmth of friendships and the thrill of romantic love. Having sisters and cousins, especially my close bonds with women, grounded me. These female friendships taught me that support can exist outside romantic ideals, and that empathy, laughter, and shared growth are lifelines in this world. I am aware of my privilege, the community around me. I am able to function in my aloneness thanks to the people surrounding me. A balance was always necessary.

Love, when it came through romantic partners, was both enchanting and bewildering. Each relationship felt like it could be forever, but deep down I often felt detached from that promise. Still, I cherished the affection, the validation, and the soft joys of being wanted. I began to understand that love isn't just a static emotion. It is something you do. It is effort, it is chaos, it is putting someone else’s happiness before your own without erasing yourself in the process.

But years of different kinds of heartbreaks, emotional abuse, and healing have reshaped my understanding of love. It no longer rests in the hands of others. It stands within me. My love now serves me. It is my compass and my anchor. And yet, a lingering question remains: is it the absence of love that makes us feel lonely? Or is aloneness our fundamental truth?

Maybe we are born alone in our personhood. We may share lives, spaces, and dreams with others, but our thoughts, our feelings, our pain, they are deeply ours. We deal with this condition in varied ways: mentally, emotionally, financially, physically, socially. When you spend too much time alone with your thoughts, this is what happens. But I cannot even claim this to be the mischief of a secluded or empty mind. Am I really lonely? Or does chronic depression convince you that you are, turning you into a hyper-independent, self-reliant individual destined to carry life all alone?

In recent times, I've started embracing this aloneness, in spite of beautiful relationships I am lucky to have in my life. But what kind of hermit life am I trying to live in it? It is slowly becoming comfortable. It no longer frightens me. I’ve begun creating a rhythm to it, finding small rituals that keep the dullness away. I’m not trying to escape being alone anymore. I’m trying to understand it. To sit with it. To see if it has something to teach me. Because maybe aloneness isn’t a curse to cure, but a truth to accept.

But in all of this, I concurred that loneliness is about feelings of isolation, disconnection, emptiness, despair, and a lack of social connection. But in aloneness, I have found something less sad, where there is a sense of purpose, adventure, continuity, and comfort. And in accepting this difference, perhaps one finds a deeper connection not just with others, but with self.

In this journey of learning to distinguish between loneliness and aloneness, I’ve discovered a quiet kind of power. Aloneness no longer feels like a void to be filled, but a space to be explored. It is where I return to myself, where I process, create, grieve, and heal. It is not always easy, and it does not promise eternal peace, but it offers presence. And perhaps that is enough. In this stillness, I am not waiting to be completed. I am simply learning how to be whole. Don’t be afraid of it, or the possibility of its permanence.

Yes, I felt this is veering towards becoming a Lana Del Ray coded essay. Never mind, we shall be back to regular programming soon.