Solitude is a Beautiful Thing

Author Elizabeth Berg wrote: "Most writers, by nature, need a lot of time by themselves. It's important to write alone, at least some of the time, but I think it's important for us to be alone a fair amount of the time, too. Then we can often get rid of a kind of internal scorecard that makes us compare ourselves to others, and that makes us do things according to the way we think others would have us do them. We need the chance to draw from our own unique selves, to act according to our own beliefs, without any interference from others. I believe that solitude, perhaps more than anything, breeds creativity, breeds originality."

It's been hard for my friends to accept that I may just want to be alone, by myself, for a while. Some of them question where I plan to live when I make the move, what I plan to do. "Won't you get bored? Won't you miss working?" they ask me. By "working" they mean wearing a suit and going to an office every day from 9 to 5. When I tell them I plan to write full time, I usually hear an "Oh..." or sometimes, nothing. Some of them refer to my career in sales and exclaim "But you're sooo good at iiiiiit!" with a slight whine the way my daughter gets in the Barbie aisle at the local pharmacy. I thank them with a smile and explain how I've always wanted to write and what better time then now. I think some worry that they may not have known me at all.

The truth is, they do know me but they only know a side of me. Then there are others out there, in cities and continents far far away, who know me very differently, more wholly. (Some of these people have been mulling over the idea of solitude themselves recently.) These are the people with whom I can be alone, myself. And that's a compliment.

"Solitude is a beautiful thing, but you need someone to tell you that solitude is a beautiful thing." -- Honoré de Balzac