This week marks six months of living alone… well not exactly, but also kinda.
I share a house with five other people. We cross paths in the kitchen, politely ignore each other’s laundry, and share an unspoken agreement that we don’t discuss the quality of bathroom singing.
It’s not solitude exactly, more like a soft coexistence.
The Middle Ground
After nearly twenty years of living with partners and kids and noise, this has been my quiet middle ground. I still hear footsteps, laughter, the occasional blender. It’s reassuring. There’s life here, just not mine to manage.
I’m probably the oldest person in the house by a good stretch. Everyone else has energy that hums, it’s just a different frequency. One I can admire from a time worn path.
I joke that I’m the household cryptid: sightings are rare, but the evidence of my existence (mugs, tea, the occasional scent of toast) is undeniable. But I make the joke only to myself, gods forbid I engage in conversation… I have a spooky reputation to maintain.
The Comfort
It’s oddly comforting. I can be social on my own terms and vanish without explanation. There’s no loneliness in it, just the small luxury of choosing my own volume.
Six months in, I’ve realised this is the kind of independence that suits me. Not isolation, not reinvention, just steady, ordinary living.
The Aggressively Peaceful Bit
There’s something deeply satisfying about being a quiet part of other people’s world. The house hums. The lights shift. Someone else’s playlist seeps through the walls. And I’m here making coffee, answering messages from my people, and feeling, finally, at home.
Because peace doesn’t always come with silence. Sometimes it’s the sound of someone else’s blender at 7 a.m. and the soft, defiant joy of knowing you’re building a life that’s aggressively peaceful.