Alone

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I know that for some people alone has negative connotations. But for me, it means quiet time, thoughtful time, reflective time, time when I can decompress and not have to put on masks for the world. When I am alone, I am myself, only myself. I am not nice, happy, friendly, angry, or clever, just me. Around others, I stay in control, keeping my expected façade, showing what the world expects. The nice, normal, mostly friendly, mostly happy, sometimes a bit angry older gentleman. That is the mask, that is the façade.

I have control and my internal life, writing, roleplaying, and imagination, or either I or the world would not have survived. This sounds arrogant when I say it like this, but there have been flashes of times when I have briefly lost control when I was much younger, and these times taught me that I had to guide and harness my dark impulses into imagination, or I would be dead before I was twenty. Then in my twenties, I slipped, and it taught me that I needed additional outlets, or I would destroy either myself, my family, or things around me before I was thirty. Then in my fifties, I slid into darkness and nearly died. Fortunately, I took a slow, quiet path rather than a loud, fast path, or I wouldn’t be here to write about it. But either way, it taught me that I have let my facade go but not my control.

Being alone but in control keeps me alive and drives my writing.