My year of solitude ✨

[fizzythoughts]

So! You have a year entirely to yourself to do exactly as you wish... and spend time in solitude rurally in a cabin, or similar. Somewhere in nature to rejuvenate the soul and enjoy the simpler things in life.

How would you spend your time?

Okay so not an AIBU, but please share things that you would like to do to occupy yourself and create fulfilment. I'm gathering inspiration for how I would like to spend a year out away from the trials and tribulations of modern life and the intensity of city-dwelling. Recovering from depression. Also its unlikely I would be able to do this for an entire year so its fantasy, in large part, but we'll see!

So far on the list I have:
Cooking (and eating)
Walking - lots and lots of walking
Yoga
Reading
Swimming (somewhere secluded)
Painting
Writing
Being in nature
Minimal phone, internet and laptop usage
Therapy
Meditation
A consistent sleep routine

What would be on your list?

A small sailboat, get out into the ocean as far as possible from all other humans, go explore some really far flung places.

These are already the things I do with my life every day. I wouldn't want to be completely alone, I love my family.

I'd pick a subject to learn and become and expert in it. You could easily become a qualification-less academic with one year of total concentration on a subject

This is about as useful as coming on to thread about surviving the winter with saying you live in the tropics.

Some people can't help but involve themselves in everything, even if it's not for them 🙄

This is my dream!

I do most of those things every day but I would prefer to not be doing them in a flat in a city centre. I’m hoping to get a camper van soon and tour the UK although I’m not sure how it will pan out with an elderly mother to care for and an autistic son to get through university!

I wonder whether most of us would like a life like this or whether this thread is attracting all the autistics/introverts…

😂 Agreed. My thoughts exactly!!

I hope it happens for you. Best of luck!

Yes... probably with introverts. I am not sure about autism though - I cannot speak to that as I don't know anyone that is autistic.

Now, I’d like to travel in my campervan. Time alone in peaceful rural settings, but time with people too. The alone time is more attractive right now, because I have a child, but people are nice too. So long as they are not forced on one…..

I agree with you @RosesAndDahlias . there is a big difference in being able to do some of these things interspersed with the mundanity of stress of every day essential chores whilst also caring for others, and having a year - or a considerable stretch of time - devoted entirely to this and to the self.

I suppose my intervention was because I sensed in your post @fizzythoughts and other PPs that you are quite frazzled and seeking a bit of serenity and calm.

I know the feeling, and when I get the feeling that everybody around me wants my flesh & blood, I realise I need to stop, and find a way to get some calmness within my current life situation, rather than a consolatory fantasy which is never going to happen.

There's a strong subtext of a kind of idealised self-improvement and purity of life in your OP as well, and I'm assuming it's in contrast to your everyday life. But I don't think it helps to think in that black & white way. You know the "If only I could lose 5 kilos and learn a language, I'd be happy" etc etc etc. Why not try to be happy anyway? Why put off doing what you can do, even if conditions aren't perfect?

We take ourselves with us, wherever we go. A year of solitude would be a year being you, as you are now. So why not use your fantasy list to see what you could do NOW, here & now, to find little bits of the serenity and self-improvement that you're fantasising about?

You're only going to get one life - why wish it away on something that will never happen? Of course, it's harder to actually DO stuff, rather than fantasise that if you could just go there (away somewhere) everything else would happen.

And believe me, as someone who does spend a lot of time in solitude - writing, living through 2 years of lockdown completely on my own - solitude is not the magic pill. Nor is going to some other location. We always take ourselves with us.

It just makes me a bit sad that so many of you are wishing away your lives with unachievable fantasy, when you could actually DO a lot of the things you're fantasising about! Why not go for it? It's amazing what you can do, bit by bit.

I do all the things I listed these days. I have an empty nest, so I’m filling it with myself, and my interests, and I feel so much better for it.

Exactly, @ShirleyJackson ! I really think it's a pity that we can't see self-improvement, calm, and joy as part of ordinary life.

If my husband left me I would happily live alone in a probably fairly eccentric house. I'd go for lots of walks and wild swimming, spending time in nature basically. A close second would be living in a women only off grid commune. Oh

I have read your updated posts @BirdinaHedge and what you say makes perfect sense. I would love to achieve all the things I really want here, where I am living, and I am trying - honestly! - but I’m living with a husband that I don’t want to be with. I really don’t think I can find serenity and calm here, permanently, within my current life situation. And I’m stuck here until my last child leaves home (it’s extremely complicated).

However, I have applied for a voluntary role that would be fascinating and keep me studying something new and worthwhile. I keep fit and eat well, and go for walks. But, until I know whether I have got that role, I am struggling. (I’m sure I will find something else though, if I don’t get it).

I have been away occasionally by myself to a part of the country that I absolutely love, and I did feel a lot of calmness within myself there. Not all because I was away from my husband.
And one day, I really will take myself off for a year or so and see what happens.

(Perhaps I have gone slightly off-topic from the original premise!)

I watched Wild with Reese Witherspoon which is based on a true story about a woman who walked the Pacific Crest Trail alone to help her sort out her trauma. Such a good film and if I were 10 years younger I’d be packing my bags and doing it myself!

Respectfully, you are not correct in what you have said here.

Yes - I do see what you are saying - we ought to try and calve out a life that aligns with our most authentic self and many of the things that I listed can be done at home.

But I also find your post just a touch patronising (though I am sure this was not your intention). I am craving solitude and I know that this would be medicinal for me. Okay, it is certainly not for everyone, but that is what would go a long way towards helping me.

Also, it is not as unrealistic as you have asserted. In fact, its highly likely that this will happen, I am just not sure exactly when. I do not have any DC or a partner, and I am not particularly committed at present in other ways. So, why not make it work? It is perfectly achievable for me, and clearly for some others, but yes not for everyone, I hear that.

It is not about running away from a feeling or from problems. It is about finding serenity and total peace from the chaos of the world and daily grind.

That is what it is about.

So your post, whilst interesting, has not done anything to dissuade me that this is the perfect tonic (for me, and maybe for some others). :)

@fizzythoughts The he first line your OP includes:- to do as we wish.

Op - your list minus meditation, which I can't do, and add chess and poker practice. I'd go to northern Finland for cabin /sauna /icy lake plunge though. Or Iceland for thermal pools.

Sounds wonderful!