Howdy.

Buckle up. Today I’m spilling secrets: real things that I hear college kids say, why I love blogging, and the times that I have spent alone.

But first, how has your week been? Are you reading or watching anything fun? I just finished “Defending Jacob” on Apple TV and need something to fill the void. I’ve also been really into “Ciao House” on Food Network. Watching people cook before you cook your own dinner is a simple pleasure that I will defend indefinitely.

THINGS I HEAR SAID IN COLLEGE CLASSROOMS

Someone once told me that I should start a Twitter page for all of the bits of conversation I overhear on my college campus. In honor of that, and at the the risk of sounding totally pretentious, I’m going to share an anecdote from college life today.

So I’m sitting in my US literature class and we’re talking about Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five. Mind you, this is a sacred text to me. I read it for the first time upon the request of my high school English teacher senior year and it has never left me. You can read about all of that here. Anyway. This kid raises his hand, this kid who may or may not have frat affiliations, and goes “You could play a really sick drinking game where every time he writes ‘so it goes’ you take a shot. You would be totally wasted a third of the way through the novel!”. The class naturally erupts. My professor and I make uncomfortable eye contact across the room. End scene. But honestly, I do give him credit for reading the book and commenting on the beautiful repetition of “so it goes”. You have to give credit where credit is due. Even if he did call Billy Pilgrim childish for “seeing aliens”. Okay, okay. I’ll stop. Oh, one more thing. On the way out of class I hear at least four of my peers coming up with ideas for our paper that is due, oh, when? Tomorrow? Yes, Becky. Tomorrow. Godspeed.

ON BLOGGING

In other news, I was watching this couple that I adore on YouTube and thinking about how strange yet kind of beautiful is it that we live in a world where we put our entire lives on the internet. I’m constantly adjusting my blog and the way that I approach it based off of the content that I love seeing the most from others. In doing this, I noticed that, while I loVe a good intellectually stimulating article about art or books or outer space, I am most consistently drawn to creators who authentically share their lives, who post pictures and stories and let you in on seemingly mundane things that they did that day. When I started blogging, I tried to keep a distance from this, convinced that no one would actually care. But being a part of the blogging community has proved my former beliefs to be anything but true. People do care. They want to know you and what you do and how you feel about the world today. Ever since I was a kid and I read a book where the protagonist blogged, I dreamed of opening up my laptop and typing out my thoughts to whoever would read them. There was something cool about it to me in the way that other kids dream of being a rockstar or a pro athlete. I wanted to be a writer. That was it. That was, and still is, the greatest tragedy and miracle of my life.

TELL ME ABOUT…

In honor of writing, here is a Natalie Goldberg writing prompt from her gem of a book Old Friend From Far Away. With each prompt, she challenges you to write for ten minutes without thinking and see what comes up. Here’s one: “Tell me about times that you’ve been alone. Go.”

When I was sixteen I was stood up by a guy that I really liked (a heavy metal drummer in a high school band—HA) and distinctly remember sitting alone in my car staring out the window for an hour and then going home and never telling anyone anything about it. I think this is probably the reason that I feel physical pain when I see my fifteen year old neighbor with her boyfriend. It reminds me of what I was denied at that age, even if it did come in spades in the years that followed.

When I was seventeen I spent every lunch alone, reading outside under the sun. More often than my school approved of, I ditched my last period to run off to the art museum alone. I could always breathe there. But you know this already.

When I was eighteen I spent the entire summer sitting on the beach, alone, nursing a broken heart.

When I was nineteen I flew across the country to New York and spent two weeks alone, running around Brooklyn and Manhattan and the Lower East Side. I got lost on the subways and wound up in cool places that I would have otherwise never known about. It was the coolest thing that I had ever done.

When I was twenty I worked late shifts at a restaurant downtown, in the heart of San Diego nightlife. On Friday and Saturday nights, after closing, I would wander around the city alone. Though, I never felt alone. I was surrounded by overflowing bars and packed restaurants with laughter and conversation spilling onto the sidewalks and all over my shoes. I felt a part of a world that I had yet to know. I was a college kid heading back to her apartment and her three, noisy roommates, but walking around those neon-lit streets felt like walking around on another planet. I drank it in like I were seeing it all for the very first time.

Now, going on twenty-one, I spend hours alone reading in the nooks and crannies of my campus as I wait for my classes and dream of what comes next. I go on long walks through the city. I visit my favorite coffee shops. I wander through art museums. I write, constantly.

THE TRUTH ABOUT BEING AN INTROVERT

And I realize, as I type this, that this all probably sounds really sad if you aren’t a person who understands or enjoys solitude. But it’s not sad to me. I actually, and I can’t believe I’m telling you this, gave a mock “TED Talk” my junior year in high school on the importance of spending time by yourself. Sometimes I forget that I did that, but it explains a lot. I love being alone. It’s like a superpower to me. There’s this tragic misconception about introverts where people think that we are antisocial or awkward. People assume that because we spend a lot of time alone, it must be because we don’t have a choice. They assume that we don’t have anyone to do things with and that in a sulk, we trudge through the world alone. Or, that we are just socially inept. And oh my gOd this irks me to no end.

Being an introvert simply means that you recharge by spending time alone. Meaning, being around others will eventually drain you. If you are an extrovert, you charge by hanging out with other people. It energizes you. Fine. I think people get that.

The misconception is that because someone charges from solitude, this must mean that they must loathe being social. Or vice versa. And that’s just inaccurate. Yes, I need to be alone a lot in order to reflect and grow and feel happy. But I love talking to people. I love being around them. I don’t shrivel up and die at the mention of a party. I’m actually really good at these things. And, get this, I credit said social skills to the times that I have spent alone. When you go places by yourself, you talk to strangers all of the time. You learn how to start conversations and meet new people. At sixteen I was chatting with perfect strangers in coffee shops while studying for my exams. You don’t do that when you’re with someone, you’re too absorbed in their company. Which can be great. But I find that when I am alone, I get to take in the whole world. It allows me the space to pay deep attention to the life that is dancing around me. And that’s how you learn not just about the world and others, but about yourself. It’s like soup for the soul.

So yeah, I’m good at being alone. But I’m also really good at being with others. I used to work as a hostess and my favorite part of the job was getting to meet so many different people all day. I need that time too, just less of it. That’s all. That’s it.

So I suppose that was my long winded way of saying, I don’t view any of the time that I have spend alone as sad. I concede that getting stood up at sixteen was sad, but mainly just because I was sixteen. You can feel bad for me for that if you must. But nothing else. The rest is beautiful and perfect and has made me into who I am. I choose to do things alone. If I want to grab a coffee with a friend, I do that. If I want to go on a date, I do that. And if I want to sit on the sand and stare at the ocean for a while in solitude, I do that. It’s the formula that works for me. We all need one.

FOR MORE

To read more about my solo adventures in New York, click More Than The MoMA.

For more places that I spend a lot of time alone at, read The 5 Spaces That Made Me Who I Am.

To further understand about my love for Natalie Goldberg and how her words led me to revelation, explore Crying In The Desert & Other Things That Changed Me.

And, for some truly brilliant reading on Kurt Vonnegut, crawl down this rabbit hole.

JOIN THE FUN

Subscribe to give your inbox something to look forward to.