The importance of loneliness

I feel a bit embarassed now as I recall the first few days of the week and how I believed the only thing missing from my experiences was company. I think whenever I travel, I have some difficult days and they are the ones I learn the most from, I have learnt something that I had been beginning to understand about myself but had forgotten, something that defines all my experiences and should have been obvious. 

I'm not a people person. 

I don't like people. 

Of course, I like certain people, but they are not 'people', people refers to the mass of human beings that surrounds us and enjoying the conpany of select persons who I have a bond with is not enough to make me like 'people'. 

As time goes on, I discover more and more how my life is governed by introversion, by the errosion of my boundaries when louder humans who see nothing wrong with trampling over my wants and needs, who take my time, my emotional resources and my energy. Too long have people been selective about the meaning of the word 'no', too long have they pushed and edged around it, decided it does not apply to them, that their feelings outweigh my own and that they can take what they want with minimal responsibility. 

Well no more. I will not roar it, I will say it quietly and gently, I will not become someone I am not in order to protect my boundaries, I will say it as me and I will say it with no appology as I recieve none when people fail to listen to that one simple word. 

I cannot be drained and burnt out by people who are not like me, who take more than I can give, and most importantly, I will defend myself. 

Too long have I taken a stance that it is is easier to repair the damage it does than to protect and defend myself, that it is worth compromising my own feelings to spare someone else the awkwardness of being stood up to when the same thought is not spared for me. 

This trip I have been okay, safe, the boundaries pushed were entirely benign but the emotional drain and the turmoil caused by people choosing to overlook my limits has been too great, and it should not make a difference the context when maintaining boundaries. 

I really need loneliness, I will appreciate it better now. It is loneliness but it is also freedom, it is revival, it is the calm that spreads on the surface of a lake. I will not deny that is brings about a saddness in me, but I can see that it is by far the lesser of two evils and in time, when I have people around me once again, I will be glad to have spent that time alone and my achievements will be all the greater for it.