I’ve been writing about community, but as I talk about in the audio recording above 🎧👆🏽💓, I need solitude to not only regenerate my energy but also to feel into what my energy is. I need this daily, and also I really value being able to take a sustained period of time for multiple days at the end of the year by myself.
I can only do this because my husband Caleb supports me, spending time with our son in Boston while I’m here at home (we celebrated the holidays with family together and then I took the train home). Being alone seems like a simple act, but it’s taken years to get to the point where I can do this without feeling like I am worrying him or letting him or my family down or leaving him with an unfair share of familycare. In 2015, when we were living in California and I was working an intense job at Facebook, I stayed home while Caleb took our son to Boston. I loved it, and he didn’t. Over the years we’ve iterated, and I’ve done a lot of inner work to both be able to hold my energy while in community and let go of my fear of not being in the group if I express what I need.
It’s not so much what I do when I’m alone but the quality and pacing of how I do it. Here’s the framework I use. Even if solitude isn’t your homecoming practice, perhaps this framework can be useful for whatever your practice is to tune into yourself.
What are my goals for this time? My goals are not specific accomplishments but feelings. I want to feel my own energy and my own pace. I want to bring my digestive system and nervous system back into balance after the holidays — so my body feels good, I sleep well, and feel clear-headed.
What am I hungry for? I mean this literally. This is a time when I am only feeding myself, so I make exactly what I want (lots of tinned fish :), when I want, and I don’t need to please anyone else with my choices.
What’s in my pantry that wants to move? This morning I found a jar of spicy anchovies that had been sitting in my fridge for a while and made Alison Roman’s shallot-anchovy paste and ate it with fried eggs. Tomorrow I’m taking the plastic bags piled up in the garage to the recycling place. It’s a great time of year to physically move energy in the house that feels stuck.
What reflections make me feel like I’ve digested the year? The prompts that came to me this year to draw, journal, and just think through were:
What did I intend to happen this year, and what actually happened? What did I learn?
What relationships did I invest in, and what was the result? What relationships need stronger boundaries, or to end altogether?
Draw what my year felt like.
Wishing you all a peaceful year-end, however it comes to you. Thank you for being here with me in this space — I guess I’m not by myself after all 😆
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