
Thank God (and my parents) that I had a bedroom for myself and did not have to share.
As I grew older, left home, and eventually got married, I recognized that the tendency, much as I was in love, continued. I needed - no - I craved alone time. I craved solitude on a regular basis, and if I did not get it, or if I had to live in more crowded circumstances sometimes on holidays with the extended family, I immediately noticed that I was missing it.
Sometimes I thought I was a hermit, a loner, but then I would remember how sociable I am, how much I enjoy people, but what became more and more clear to me as time went by, was that I most definitely have a greater need for solitude than many of the people I know.
I began to recognize that what I had erstwhile defined as a recharging of batteries, was, in fact, a need for communion with the innermost self, with my soul, on some level that - even when I had not yet come to define it as such - was not only necessary for my well-being, but was an absolutely vital requisite for my being. Honoring this became important, and I began to understand that much as a plant needs sunshine and water, I needed this solitude in order to thrive.
In the relationships of my life this has continued to hold true, and I have had many a difficult moment in which this needed to be explained on terms that were non-threatening to the other. My solitude is not a lack of love for the other, or a lack of desire to spend time with the other, but a need to nourish the self despite the other. It is something that endures, and that needs to be honored, even when I am in relationship. It came before and it will continue to be after.
And so, as I came across these words from the great Rainer Maria Rilke today, I resonated with them ... he wrote: I hold this to be the highest task for a bond between two people, that each protects the solitude of the other.
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