How I Learned to Enjoy My Own Company

My original plan for this blog post was to do a recap of my winter break and explain everything I did over the course of the month of January. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I really didn’t do all that much. My family and I had a fun Christmas together but due to COVID numbers, most of my plans ended up being canceled or postponed which grew to be extremely frustrating. Basically, my break consisted of me going to different coffee shops, reading a few chapters of my book, then coming home and making Tik Toks and hanging out with my dog. If it sounds boring, that’s because it was. Of course, I did hang out with Alexa and a few other people and those days were very fun but for the most part, I was on my own. Luckily, I’m the type of person who enjoys my own company and is content with being with myself, which is what I want to talk about in this week’s blog.

Now before I begin I feel the need to clarify what I mean when I say I’m content with being by myself. If you all remember a couple of months ago, I got COVID and was forced to isolate myself in a hotel room. This is the type of situation where I was not okay with being by myself. I think there is a big difference between knowing how to love your own company for a few hours out of the day and having to be stuck in a room with nothing but your own thoughts for ten days straight. I have come to realize that I am more of an extrovert than I thought I was and while I have learned to love spending a day alone, isolating myself from all human interaction is something I know I will never be okay with, and that is completely fine.

However, I do think it is important to know how to love your own company for a variety of reasons. For one, it’s rare in your early to late 20’s to be constantly surrounded by other people. Even if you have a roommate or a significant other, both of you have your own lives and there will be times where your schedules don’t line up and you will be alone. The more comfortable you are with your own company, the easier this transition will be. Secondly, I think that being more independent with yourself allows you to get to know who you are as a person. Over the past year, I have grown so much as a human being by just simply spending time with myself which I am so grateful for.

Before I started spending time with myself, I would only ever really leave the house if it was to go hang out or run errands with other people (partially because I didn’t want to and partially because my mom was afraid I would get abducted if I stepped anywhere out of a 2-mile vicinity of our house). But during the summer of 2020, I was getting sick of being in the house all of the time and decided to go grab a coffee at a local coffee shop. This progressed to me going to get a coffee and walking around downtown Salem, spending all day in bookstores browsing, and even going so far as me getting lunch at some of my favorite restaurants by myself. And I loved every second of it. Not only was this getting me out of the house and curing my boredom, but it was also relaxing. I remember at first, going to a sit-down coffee shop or restaurant alone was a bit intimidating to me. I was worried that people would judge me for eating by myself and wouldn’t take me seriously even though I’m 20 years old. But what I soon realized is that nobody cares. Literally, nobody cares. Half the time, people are so focused on themselves that they won’t even realize what is going on with other people and if they do, they will likely forget about it within the hour. I remember once a time I posted on my private Snapchat story how much I loved taking myself out to lunch and I had so many people swipe saying how they wished they could do that but get too intimidated by the idea of eating alone. If you have similar feelings about this just know that while yes, it can be scary at first, it only gets easier the more you do it.

Spending more time with myself allowed me to also gain newfound confidence about who I was as a person. I like to think that I have always been pretty secure about myself, but sometimes I am my own worst critic. Being comfortable with my own thoughts allowed me to figure out the parts of me that I didn’t 100% love, and work on them. If we compare who I was from 2020 and who I am now, it’s like looking at two different people. I have definitely grown and matured more in those two years than I have most of my life, and I know I am still going to be growing for a while. My mom always tells me that your 20’s are for figuring out who you are as a person and while I’m still at the beginning of this phase, I am so excited to see where I end up. Going back to my time in isolation, I also think the fact that I had already been so used to keeping myself company and had been working on myself is what kept me sane throughout that whole experience.

Now if you are reading this and also want to do the same here are my tips to you. The first one is to start slow. If you feel uncomfortable going to a restaurant alone right off the bat, start by just running errands by yourself or just going on a drive. Feel comfortable with being by yourself in small increments and the more you do it, the easier it will become. Secondly, remember that every person is different. What might come easy to some people will be harder for others and that’s okay. There are also people who naturally hate being alone for long periods of time and that is totally valid as well. I know for me there are times where as much as I try to be okay with being alone, I just either get bored or lonely and want to be surrounded by people, and that’s okay. This post is by no means hating on extroverts because I am one to my core. This is just my story and experience on the subject matter.

This was an extremely short piece this week. I don't know why but writer’s block has been hitting me extremely hard recently and the only way I can think to combat that is by pushing through and writing whatever comes to mind, even if that means shorter posts. On a different note, I head back to Rhode Island on Saturday which means the second semester of junior year is officially beginning. I am both equally excited and terrified as usual but I’ll update you all once my first week of classes is over. Until then, thanks for reading this week’s post!

I hope you all have a lovely week!

- Meg