It was early on Sunday morning. When I woke, I immediately knew it was Sunday. There was something different in the silence—the crisp air, the birds and the slower rhythm of the world.
I thought how wonderful it would be to share this moment with another soul: simply to drink in the peace together and listen to the sounds of the birds.
My thoughts went to my family, with whom there is now more silence than companionship. I thought about the people who say they are with me and part of my life. Yet when I looked around, I was alone in my bed. I was listening alone to the silence of the Sunday morning.
In that moment, I was confronted with one of my deepest fears: the fear of being abandoned in the second half of my life. The fear whispered that I would live alone until the end.
But was this loneliness? Was it solitude? Or could it become a conscious choice to live solo?
And then another question arose: How can I make this life meaningful? How might solo living become part of my path of individuation?
Living alone
Living alone has been part of my life since the father of my children left, and later, when my children moved away to build lives of their own.
Over the years, I worked hard to remain independent. I learned to take responsibility, make decisions and manage life on my own. Independence became something I valued, but perhaps it also became something I used to protect myself.
Living alone describes an external reality. It tells us who is—or is not—physically present in our home. But it does not describe the whole of our inner life.
A person can live alone and experience peace, freedom and connection. Another person can share a home or a bed and still feel profoundly lonely.
Living alone and loneliness are not the same.
Loneliness
My loneliness belongs to my longing: to belong, to be touched and to be truly seen.
It is the longing to share an ordinary Sunday morning with another person. It is the wish to turn towards someone and say, “Listen to the birds,” and to know that the moment matters to both of us.
Loneliness is not proof that I have failed at independence. Nor is it evidence that I am weak or incomplete. It reminds me that I am human and that human beings are made for relationship.
The danger comes when loneliness awakens old fears of abandonment. Then the longing for companionship may become a desperate search for someone who can make us feel safe, chosen and at home.
We may begin to imagine that another person can rescue us from our inner loneliness. We may place our sense of belonging into their hands. Without realising it, we can abandon ourselves while trying not to be abandoned by someone else.
From a Jungian perspective, this is where projection may enter. We place our hope for home, wholeness and meaning upon another person. We do not only see the person who is actually there; we also see everything we long for them to become.
The work is not to stop longing or loving. The work is to recognise what we have asked another person to carry for us—and slowly begin to reclaim it.
Solitude
Solitude feels different from loneliness.
I experience solitude as my striving to become the person God intends me to be: to become myself and to live as my own person.
In Jungian language, this is part of individuation—the lifelong movement towards becoming more fully who we are. In the second half of life, the questions begin to change. We may ask less about what society expects from us and more about what our own soul is asking us to become.
Solitude allows space for those questions.
It is not simply the absence of other people. It is the presence of a relationship with myself, with God and with the deeper centre of my life.
Solitude does not ask me to deny my need for relationship. It does not require me to pretend that I no longer want companionship, touch or belonging. It asks me to remain present to myself even while I long for another.
Perhaps this is the difficult task of the second half of life: to remain open to love and belonging while also creating an inner home of our own.
I do not want independence to become armour. I do not want my home to become a place where nobody can reach me. But neither do I want loneliness to persuade me to abandon myself for the sake of being chosen.
Learning to hold both
Like one of my clay vessels, perhaps my life must become large enough to hold both my longing for companionship and my need to become my own person.
The vessel does not reject emptiness. Its empty space is what allows it to hold something. In the same way, the quiet spaces in my life may contain possibilities that I cannot yet see.
The silence of that Sunday morning was painful, but it was also beautiful. The birds were still singing. The air was still crisp. Life was present, even though nobody was beside me.
I am learning that living alone is my present circumstance. Loneliness is part of my longing to belong. Solitude is the inner space in which I continue becoming myself.
I can acknowledge all three without allowing any one of them to define my whole life.
I am learning to hold two truths: I long to share my life, and I am also called to become my own person.
Perhaps solo living becomes meaningful when I stop asking only, “Who will share my life with me?” and begin to ask:
How can I inhabit my own life more fully, while still keeping the door open to love?
Questions for reflection
- When does living alone feel peaceful to me, and when does it become loneliness?
- What do I hope another person will provide that I may need to begin cultivating within myself?
- How can I remain open to companionship without abandoning who I am?
A small practice
Choose one quiet moment this week. Instead of immediately filling the silence, sit with it for a few minutes.
Notice what arises: peace, sadness, longing, fear or gratitude. Do not judge the feeling or try to change it. Simply ask:
What is this silence inviting me to hear?
— Rina Louw
Jungian Sandplay Therapist