Solitary musings

Today I stayed home, enjoying a day that I was not required to be anywhere. I celebrated by staying up late last night to finish one book, and spent the majority of today re-reading another. The laundry isn't done yet, nor the lesson plans, but my imagination has been revived.
It is a luxury I know, to get to choose what I want to do with a day like this and not be interrupted.
It was pleasant. It was solitary. It bordered on lonely.
I noticed that some swallows now had some noisy offspring nested in the roof of my carport, and Mr. and Mrs. Bird were repeatedly flying past my windows on their mission to feed the little tykes. I also heard a game of hide-and-seek going on next door; it must have been grandkids of the elderly couple who live there.
After finishing the book, I decided to take a walk to straighten my body from the immobile, seated position I had been molded into by the couch. It was a bit past nine at night, but I confess I enjoy taking walks at times of day when most folks are either working, eating dinner, watching tv, or doing family stuff.
Several stars were just becoming visible, and the slice of moon accompanied by Venus was already high in the sky. I was shadowed by the two neighbor cats for a block, but they disappeared back into the shadows as I walked the short loop back to my house.
I don't mind walking in silence, it allows me to observe, to think. I don't even mind walking alone. However, to walk with someone is preferable, just as it is nicer to share a mealtime, whether with conversation or companionable silence.
Aloneness is not the same as loneliness. Loneliness is when the solitude hurts, when the absence of someone is negative rather than positive. Aloneness, or solitude, is having the bed to myself and enjoying it. Loneliness is having the bed to myself and wishing it were otherwise. Solitude is a quiet house when I need the quiet; loneliness is when a quiet house reminds me that no-one is there to notice when I come and go.
Companionship -the antidote to loneliness- is the presence of someone else making coffee in the morning, having someone to wake you up when you sleep through the alarm, someone to help get things off a high shelf or lift something that takes two to lift, a person to make you laugh or to let you rant, someone you wait for or who waits for you to come home, a source of a welcome hug when you need it most. Simple things, really, but things that I notice more now that I no longer live with a roommate or parents. Especially the hugs. There are a lot of things I can do for myself, but that is not one of them.
From my observations of others my age, it seems that many are so constantly with someone, that they do not know what it is like to be without someone. To be without someone for a time, I think, helps a person to know themself better and to value togetherness more. The value not only of the sweet and tender romantic kind of togetherness, but also the household- and garden-variety of togetherness that can demand a person let go of selfishness and petty preferences and enjoy the benefits of a shared life.