This idea of the difficult gift came to me while on a run at Overton Park, on one of those “false Spring” days where all your hope returns after the Very Long Winter of January. I have spent all of today alone; I have not spoken words to anyone. There are many gifts to Alone; though sometimes it is a Difficult Gift to receive. (February 2, 2025)
Kitchen hand towels and cloth napkins are folded all along the back of and along the arms of the loveseat. I’ll move to the bedroom next to put away a clean load of my clothes. Before that, I washed the dishes - there is still no upgrade to automatic dishwasher in this house - and before that I flipped through about 15 old notebooks that belonged to Jeff before finally discarding them in the trash.
When I’m unsure of what to do with myself, which happens a lot on Sundays, I choose to see some things through from beginning to end, easy tasks that can help me get my bearings on the day. I started the day, as I do on most weekend days, shame-free that I was still laying in bed when 8am rolls around. I’ve listened to the new music release from my friend in Texas. I’ve listened to my own songs and remembered why I wrote them. I’ve responded to some texts in the text thread with my girls. And at some point earlier in the morning, I fell back asleep after having woken up entirely too early when my housemate arose for his early Sunday morning commitments.
It is a gift, in many ways, to be alone. I am experiencing the freedom of making my own choices, free of people-pleasing. I am learning to rest after years of a schedule filled to the brim with band rehearsals and meetings and gigs and retreats and more meetings and, sprinkled in, the things I actually wanted to do - walks at the park and dinner with friends. I often led a margin-less life that was filled with anxiety alongside the various events in my Google calendar.
My aloneness these days often signals to me spaciousness and breathing room, a chance to carefully decide to what I will offer my “yes.” It also offers me a chance to learn my preferences which are, I’m delightfully discovering, changing or emerging for the first time. My diet has changed, my schedule is my own, and my creativity through writing has grown. I can often call my aloneness a gift.
And yet it can be a Difficult Gift.
On this false Spring day, I find myself craving the joy of meeting someone at the end of my run, someone who gives me butterflies, someone to reach for my hand without fanfare, without asking, as we finish the trail together for an easy walk. Right now, I want to send a text to the person who I can tell likes me and who, I think, wants to get to know but for reasons that he hasn’t shared and that, quite frankly, are none of my damn business, he resists. He cannot be the one to meet me for a walk.
And, for the life of me, I can’t make sense of the few whose ‘yes’ turned into ‘I have to cancel,’ or ‘I’ve changed my mind,’ before we could even go for the walk on the trail in the park on the sunny day of the weekend that I, instead, will continue to share with myself and my thoughts.
I will still call it Gift. Within this gift comes the self-discovery that can only come through solitude without airpods, chores without a podcast ringing through the house. Don’t get me wrong - I do plenty of that - but sometimes I let the Gift speak to me out of the quiet, the quiet that does, yes, sometimes remind me of what I’ve lost but more often reminds me of all the room and the time I’ve been offered, an invitation to see and know myself. And so for this sometimes Difficult Gift I say thank you.
I say thank you, and I mean it.