Happy Friday morning, everyone.  Another week of work is done.  Guess the beach is out for me this weekend.  We're in for some heavy rains this weekend...both Saturday and Sunday.  Matter of fact, the rain has started already.  I don't mind, though.  It's going to be a quiet weekend, anyway.  Hubby will be going to visit his son, and my son is supposed to go with friends...so I will have some alone time.  What I will do with it, I haven't decided...but I always manage to find something.  I love my family with all my heart, but I also cherish my alone time...my solitude.  It wasn't always that way, though. There was a time I was lonely.

"Be able to be alone.  Lose not the advantage of solitude, and the society of thyself".--Sir Thomas Browne

Solitude is the time we CHOOSE to be alone...but, when we believe that we have no choice, it becomes loneliness that we feel. Solitude is when you look forward to your private moments.  When we are lonely, we begin to feel as if we are trapped in a web of isolation. We begin to cling to others. We seek out people to spend our time with.  We want our friends, our loved ones with us always. But, we find that we can be in a room full of people and still be lonely.  We surround ourselves with 'noise'.   We feel like we are coming out of our skin when we are alone.   In my case,  I was lonely because I didn't like myself very much.  I didn't like my own company.  I think most of us who were raised in dysfunctional families have difficulty being with ourselves. We feel as if our thoughts and our feelings aren't valid because we feel inadequate; all of our lives we've been told we are inadequate. 


Along my journey, I have learned that you can never find true happiness until you learn how to be at peace with and comfortable spending time with yourself. I once read a book called "Wherever You Go, There You Are".  We can argue with our spouse or a friend, and we can walk away...but we cannot walk away from self. Self is always with us. Learning to like...even love ourselves....is all about increasing our self-esteem. It is all about telling those inner voices to go away, that you are no longer interested in what they have to say.  Retraining your thoughts is not something that can be done overnight.  It took me time to reach the point where I can not only enjoy, but look forward to my solitude.


Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend.