Living alone in a pandemic

There’s no better time to take a good, perhaps cringing look at your life than during social distancing/self-isolation in the midst of a pandemic.  

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve asked myself more than a few ‘what ifs.” If I had known, say in my thirties, that a couple of decades later there’d be a pandemic that would see countries world-wide shutting their borders, invoking their emergency measures, and asking people to stay home, stay safe, wouldn’t I have made it a priority to get married, have children — to ensure that right now, I wouldn’t be living in a tiny downtown apartment with no-one but my cat for company?

I went through a fairly rough, isolating time in my life a few years back when I was expriencing poverty and rarely left my house due to a) lack of funds for socializing, and b) poor self-esteem and shame about my inability to earn enough money to live comfortably. Though I’m in a much better position today, part of my difficulty in being alone now is that it reminds me of a that pretty dark time. 

Now, I have absolutely no problem being solitary — in fact, I crave it. And with a full-time job and a semi-active social life, I don’t get enough of it. But sometimes you have to be careful what you ask for because too much solitary time can take a wrong turn into loneliness and self-pity.

…more to come