I'm not a people person. You will never see me surrounded by big groups of friends, I have never been part of the populars, I have only a hundred Instagram followers, and my relatives usually forget my birthday.
And this has always felt like an issue: somehow, some divine voice was always telling me that I should be partying on Friday nights instead of watching 21 Jump Street at 3 AM, that my loneliness was conflicting my life, that I needed a text message from someone or my day would be meaningless. It's at times like these that you have two choices: you can let that sense of sadness take over, or ask yourself "is that really how things work?"
Our society, always great at creating artificial norms, has somehow established that being alone is bad, that you must be surrounded by people all the time, groups of big friends to guide you through life, a significant other to make you breakfast in the morning; huge, crowded families who meet up every Sunday.
And while that could be true, today I'm here to show you the opposite: Being alone is a blessing. It's an opportunity, a way to get to know yourself and to be at peace with every little bit of imperfection you have, to open your own path into the world.
Of course I'm not saying that you should reject the relationships in your life, become a cranky old person who only yells at people. But if you find yourself alone, you need to know how good it is, how it's an opening, an opportunity. After all, when you have nothing left to lose, you also have everything to win.
I used to envy my friends with boyfriends, feeling sad because they had a special someone to share their lives with, and I didn't. Then I realized, as selfish as it may sound: why should I share my life with anyone? My experiences are mine and only mine, and so are my choices. Sometimes, we let others' opinions influence our decisions, so much so that they aren't ours anymore.
And sure, sometimes it gets depressing: there are times during Saturday nights when I find myself crying to the Snapchat stories of those who have actually left the house during the weekend, in my pajamas and eating cheese. But there are also days where I see everything that I have done, and how I have done it myself, and I love knowing that those were my adventures, that I was strong enough to deal with that.
So my message is: Be a loner. Open your own path to the world, go to new places, even meet new people, but specially, enjoy the time you get with yourself, enjoy your own effort. If it goes right or wrong, it's all yours