Optimization Days

Issue No. 14 | Time & Solitude | September Advice

For the past week I’ve been sweating over an essay to send to you, an essay called “Alone Time,” or “Leave Me Alone,” which I think is funnier. The essay is about solitude, and all the ways I crave it.

The impetus for the essay was a recent weekend I had in New York. My husband had gone out of town, and I’d made no plans for myself—I spent 72 hours alone in my apartment and around upper Manhattan. There was something surprisingly powerful about that weekend. By the time it was over, I felt more rested, more creatively fulfilled, than I had felt in months. When my husband came back and I told him how great I felt, he said “wow.” Then he said he’d try to book more weekends away, to give me more alone time. It was a very loving thing to say, but I rushed to reassure him. This wasn’t about your absence, I said. My weekend wasn’t great because I was alone. 

But—wasn’t it?