You Build Your Life to Hold You: A Love Story With Solitude

“Create a world, your world. Alone. Stand alone. And then love will come to you, then it comes to you.” — Anaïs Nin

I saw in my memories the other morning that I’d posted this quote on some social media platform five years ago. Of course, it’s come back around to now. Cyclical rhythms. Tides in and out. So, I guess five years ago I was alone, and trying to make the best of it. I don’t remember posting the quote or what exactly was going on in my life then, but I can assume. I can assume that my long-time, middle school sweetheart and I had broken up for the 15th time (soon to be about 45th—not exaggerating), that I had initiated it, that I was craving a journey into myself. But what I imagine happened only days after I posted that quote was what usually happened: I ran back, I cleaned up my mess in some type of grand gesture, and I melted into the relationship again.

This was my cycle.

There were plenty of others, but this was one of the prominent ones.

♥  ♥  ♥

About three years ago, I moved into my own apartment for the first time. I’d moved out of my parents’ house at 17, but always with roommates. Living alone, I realized quickly, is a different animal. I will never forget the last piece of furniture being dragged up the three flights of stairs, the last dish my mom wiped and placed in a cabinet, the final clicking of the lock behind my parents and my best friend as they left me there. The way the bare, white walls threatened to swallow me whole as I stepped back over my threshold without them. The wide open space of complete solitude. The way my breath quickened.

I immediately collapsed into my sheets and sobbed. Hyperventilated. Screamed. Scared myself. I don’t think I knew the depth of my fear until that moment: being alone. I was aware it was stuffed down somewhere. I understood most days that that’s why I kept myself, over and over, in relationships that didn’t serve me anymore. That I couldn’t serve anymore, either. Relationships (I mean that broadly—friendships, etc. as well) that felt miserable, but miserable in a way that was comfortable. Miserable that I could melt into like a warm, wool rug. That, at least, offered me relief from myself. Fetal position, arms clenched over my head. Yet safe.

It was May of 2015 when I made the move. Twenty-two years of the fear of sitting with myself began to wash out of me like a drain pipe in a storm. I was somewhere around eight months sober, the longest I’d ever been since my first drink at twelve. This ex of mine that I dragged through my cycles was finally saying No Lizz, I’ve had enough of this (thank god). And I was in this goddamn apartment, wondering what I was thinking, thinking I could do this—my breath reverberating off the walls in the silence. The loneliness I needed thrust upon me. Grace, I know now. Then, it felt like my world was being sliced open.

I was living in the top floor of an old funeral home. The space was tiny with low, slanted ceilings, as if it was caving in on me. The kitchen hung off of the living room with only area to stand between the counter and the open the fridge door. My bedroom—the biggest one I’d ever had—took up most of the square feet of the place, my twin mattress like an island amidst my piles of boxes and books. I had no bed frame. I slept as close to the floor as I could (still do—it comforts me). Or maybe, I was hoping at times that the Earth would open up while I was sleeping and take me in. Swallow me whole.

I spent most of my first afternoons decorating. Hanging a gallery wall in my living room, color-coordinating my bookshelves, adorning the corners with golden twinkle lights and the kitchen counter with fresh fruits and veggies. I spent my hours in between crying on the living room floor between the coffee table and the love seat, forehead to the floor, so many hours that it probably adds up to days. I cut the surrounding silence with music at deafening volumes when it was too much to bare. And other times, I forced myself to sink into it. I spent minutes—every single day, twenty to thirty to be exact—in seated, silent meditation, desperate to cultivate something inside of myself that could withstand the depths of it.

That little baby apartment in the top floor of a funeral home became the only space other than my childhood home that I’ve ever lived in for that long continuously. The only place that ever truly felt like home in the way that it did, in a way that cradled and held me—in all that I was. I will miss it forever. I grew into myself there, became so much of who I am now. I don’t care how cliché and cheesy it sounds. You know what I mean if it’s happened to you; there is nothing like it. Nothing like falling in love with yourself and your life—especially for the first time.

“You’re your Same Self.

The truth of this flickers past you like a spark. For years you’ve felt only half-done inside, cobbled together by paper clips, held intact by gum wads and school paste. But something solid is starting to assemble inside you. You say, I am my Same Self. That’s not nothing, is it?

Meredith nods one of her gyspy fortune-teller nods. She whammy-waves her hand over your cereal, says, I see big adverntures for [you]. Big adventures, long roads, great oceans: same self.

Like I’m chocolate through to the center, you say. Same self.” -MARY KARR

Around two or so weeks ago, I signed a lease for a one-bedroom apartment that made me gasp when I walked into it. Floor to ceiling bay windows that take up the entire living room wall. So much natural light I might never use electric. A janky wooden bridge cutting across the roof leading to a zig-zag fire escape. A layout full of intricacies that might make you wonder who in the world designed the place (was it me?). I knew in the way that I knew that I’d know: it was my Home, the one I’d been waiting for.

And yet, I didn’t want to sign the lease. And yet, signing it took something of me—took prayer, took meditation, took conversation after conversation, took fighting my own questioning, fighting a deeply-rooted fear I can’t quite shake, a fear I cling to in the name of “freedom.” Fear of commitment. The statement doesn’t quite feel strong enough to portray its weight on my chest.

In the weeks leading up to the signing, it was brought to my attention by god, in the form of some amazing friends: With that fear so prominent, that fight, that avoidance, all the time... You’re not really free, are you, Lizz?

Me? Not free? Do you know who I am? Do you understand what I stand for? What I live for? What I preach? Freedom. Freedom. Freedom. It reverberates through me like a gong, vibrates my core, attaches itself to me in a way that’s both inspiring and terrifying. Freedom, freedom, freedom. My heart beat is made of it. I wanted to tell them they didn’t know me at all.

But I couldn’t. They were right. I had to sign the lease. SIGN THE LEASE. Sign the lease, Lizz! You LOVE this place; why wouldn't you sign the lease?! It didn’t matter that I couldn’t fathom living in York another year. That I have financial insecurities and can’t seem to figure out one steady income stream. That I already have plans to leave home for the summer… Here we are Now. Here I am now, staring my fear in its god-awful face: commitment. Which I began to realize also just means fear of greater responsibility, of bigger reality, of potential, of “dropping the ball,” of—fundamentally, as always—not being enough.

♥  ♥  ♥

Since my trip backpacking through Mexico and Costa Rica in August, I’ve essentially been backpacking my way through York City. Living out of my car, the too-many-bags over my shoulders, and any apartment I could borrow or house sit. I was the orphan of Cherry Lane, my friends joked. I was a bed at my parents’ house to sleep in, and everything I owned boxed up in their garage, but a home? It was wherever I was that afternoon, wherever I laid my head that night. Whoever welcomed me in.

What a trip it’s been. A beautiful, preposterous experience. Resources sprung up around me continuously and friends showed up for me in ways that were so kind and giving and pure that they were hard for me to accept. Hard to express my gratitude for—still. I learned my difficulties in accepting help, and especially in asking for it. I learned that I am resourceful, a scavenger to my core. I learned that I have so much love in my life, it almost hurts. And I learned that as much as my soul is a free-spirted vagabond with a desperate love for the gypsy lifestyle, my need for grounding is nonnegotiable. I will float away; I will lose my head. I have to be tethered to Mother Earth, somehow. I have to ground myself within a sanctuary, a Room of My Own.

Two or so weeks ago, I was exhausted, defeated, and begging for a Home. I was tapped out on packing my bags each morning and wandering around town all day long. I was tapped out on conversation after conversation with nowhere to hide, on searching behind each corner for a place of refuge. Here I was—three years plus since I closed the door of 1701 W Market Street and cried out in loneliness—begging god for solitude. For a space all alone. What a gift.

There was no other choice but to sign the lease; I knew that all along. As scared as I was to commit, grabbing the keys to my new Home felt like the last exhale into savasana. Full release. Full surrender. My first morning there, I crept into my living room as if it was a stranger’s condo and curled up on my hardwood floor under the warm sunshine beaming through my front windows, surrounded by unpacked boxes and dust, and cried. Tears of finally. Of full gratitude.

“Living alone is a skill, like running long distance or programming old computers. You have to know parameters, protocols. You have to learn them so well that they become like a language: to have music always so that the silence doesn’t overwhelm you, to perform your work exquisitely well so that your time is filled. You have to allow yourself to open up until you are the exact size of the place you live, no more or else you get restless. No less, or else you drown.” –Catherynne M. Valente

I’m beginning to realize how often I cling to the feeling that I found on the top floor of that old funeral home alone. I claim independent and I claim isolation and I wrap them tightly around me, just as if they were the old, dingy wool rugs of my worn-out, past relationships. Warm. Safe. I grip onto “freedom,” terrified that I’ll revert back to the scared little girl who hung on to anyone who’d take her in, who stayed when she should have left, who sold herself short again and again. Scared, still, to revert back to my old cycles.

But I remind myself that it’s silly. Impossible. I know that I have found something that I will never lose. Anyway, it was always there; I was always there. Always mine. Begging myself to come home. Come home. Come home.

This past year, I was given the opportunity to fall in love with myself all over again. Last June, I left a relationship with a man I loved deeply, but knew wasn’t right anymore (read about it here). I broke our hearts. In fact, I don’t think I actually allowed myself to truly deal with the emotions of it all until this past winter. But when it finally hit me, I was devastated in a way that took me by surprise. That took me. That forced me to begin the work again.

I’m so grateful for that, now. All of it. I had no plans to be single this long, and though I said so, I don’t think I actually wanted to be. In fact, if I’m really being transparent, I tried to go back to that relationship AND another very long-over relationship within the first few months. Old habits die so hard. But the Universe, god, has been a stand for me through everything: blocking these options in one way or another when I tried to revert to them, reminding me that there’s more. Nudging me gently back to myself again. My saving grace. Always.

♥  ♥  ♥

Through four new countries and too many new cities and states to name. New homes and pop-up sanctuaries. Unbelievably empowering female friendships and mentorships. Unbelievably vulnerable male friendships, too. Through job after job that didn’t feel aligned, so I left. Through a desperate deep dive into becoming a yoga teacher; through beginning to hold space for my community. Through living with my parents again—which is a novel on its own. Through so many self-help books and programs that I thought I’d lost my mind. Through revealing a lot of ugliness and mess and shadow, and seeing who was still there. A whole new, public depth of coming into myself. (I mean, just the other month I posted practically nude pictures of myself on the internet. I still get nauseous every time I see them on my feed like what the fuck were you thinking?) Then I remember: less thinking, more feeling. More being just where you are. More opening. More Truth.

And now: a new Home, all mine, again. Freedom through commitment. I could believe that I’m right back where I began—in a one-bedroom, third floor apartment alone, alone, alone. But I remind myself that I’m brand new, that each moment is brand new, too. And I'm so excited.

Anyway, this past year plus without partnership has been different. I’ve learned the same things again, I guess. I am Whole. I am Enough. I am my Own. But to new depths. I’ve learned how to take care of me—without guilt and shame and uncertainty—so that I can take care of you, too. And I don’t mean bath bombs and buying myself flowers (though I definitely include those things). But I mean accepting myself in all of my recklessness and mess. I mean truly letting others see it. I mean embracing loneliness instead of crawling beneath it to the nearest activity to fill my time with. I mean cracking my heart wide open.

Above anything else, I’ve learned that we can only keep what we have when we give it away. And as I give of myself from a state of Wholeness, in a way that stays True to myself, I have been fulfilled with a love that I would sit here forever attempting to put into words. I’ve been given a village of support in my local community, of friends across oceans and seas, of home after home after home. I have, in my darkest moments, been everything but lonely.

I have found something this past year even greater—if that’s possible—than what I found in the top floor of the funeral home: Connection. Deep, vulnerable connection with others. I have learned what it means when they say we can only meet each other as deeply as we’ve met ourselves. Because as I crack open, and work to accept what I find there, I begin to feel you in a new way, too. As I bare myself, I’m granted the gift of seeing you in your own naked vulnerability. And I promise you, that’s the stuff that being alive is made of.

I picture myself now holding little me as I sob on my old living room floor, my warm cheek resting on hers, telling her she’s okay. She knows that. But we all need love, anyway. My new apartment appears similar, so many of the same wall decorations and colors and knick-knacks, but like these cycles and silly fears replaying again, it's different. Fresh eyes, open to see new magic. Deeper breathing. A frantic wooden top finally done spinning. A purring cat laid to rest on your lap, still. Brand New. Same Self.

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