Sorry for the long pause in writing, followers!
It’s been a pretty crazy past month for me – I’ve had to take a summer class (Accounting, gross) which left me with a lot of homework, and basically no social life. This was reiterated daily since my sister is away in Colorado for the summer. I’ve also had a lot of time to bond with my parents, which has been an awesome blessing, but as I’ve been praying about what to write, a topic that God keeps putting on my heart is aloneness, or being alone.
What a concept, right? The world’s focus today is to be surrounded by people – friends, parties, etc. Because if we’re surrounded by people we aren’t missing out on anything. And honestly, being on Hope’s campus you definitely are surrounded – there is constantly something to do. Don’t get me wrong, that’s not a bad thing at all, but sometimes its just a little much, and me being the introvert that I am, I would find myself craving the alone time I most desperately needed. Personally, in order for me to be as unstressed and carefree as possible, I need at least an hour or so of decompressing time a day, and at Hope, that was nearly enough to keep me sane.
As I mentioned in my previous post, I was worried about coming home for the summer because I was worried I didn’t have a purpose. Well another reason I was worried to come home was because I was worried about being lonely, bored, and alone so often. I thought I couldn’t handle all the alone time I knew I was about to get. I thought it would get old. But readers, I was so so wrong!
Being alone for the past three months has been extremely beneficial. I think I was worried about being alone because I didn’t know how to be alone. To actually be alone with none of my friends to surround me, I was worried about coping with myself and the millions of thoughts I had running through my head. This would be the season where I was going to have to forget about anyone else’s opinion, and just think about what I believed, and what I thought on certain subjects. At first, it was extremely stressful just being alone with my thoughts, but now it’s the most wonderful pastime. Take today for example – my mom is out of town, my dad is in the yard doing yard work, and I’ve been poking around, doing things I have to do completely and wonderfully alone. To some people, that sounds super lame, and I would have said this was super lame a few months ago, but now it’s just a peaceful day that I get to be alone with myself and think or write or do whatever I want.
It’s awesome.
This transitioning of mindsets on aloneness has also let me become closer to God. Being alone gives you a lot of time to think about life, and journaling and praying with Him is one way to get a different perspective on the world, especially as I settled into my thoughts from the first day of the summer.
As I get ready to go back to Hope within the next few weeks, I can confidently say that because of this summer, and because of my outrageous amount of alone time, I am a more confident person. I’ve had time to think about what my values are, the person that I want to be, and action plans to become that person. I’ve become more self-aware, and because of this, more decisive. I can’t wait to go back to Hope, but I am becoming more and more appreciative of what this summer has brought as each day of it comes to a close.
I hope you’ve found your own kind of peace this summer too, readers. Enjoy these next few weeks of summer before the school year starts back up!
Until next time!