A reader named Nancy, winner of a $10 Wal-Mart gift card in my fifth anniversary giveaway, contacted me to ask about the solo life.
“I’m about to live on my own for the first time, and this gift card will parlayed into something important, like toilet paper or spices,” she wrote. “Any advice you can offer on how to live alone…would be appreciated.”
Although I’m now quite happily partnered, I did live on my own from February 2005 until well into 2012. And I loved it. Loved, loved, loved it.
Possibly that was because I’d lived alone less than a year total in almost 47 years on the planet. Being by myself – no one to tell me what to do, to turn the TV way up, to track across the floor I’d just mopped – was a tremendous luxury.
When I became a midlife college student, that solitude felt not just splendid but necessary. I’d stagger through my apartment door, set down my book bag, kick off my shoes, prepare a simple meal and luxuriate in the quiet.
A major downside to living alone? Paying for everything.