Who I Am When I’m Alone

When I’m alone, I don’t have to perform. There’s no version of me holding it together for anyone else’s comfort. I’m just… me. The real one. The messy one. The one who sometimes leaves the laundry in a chair for days or reheats the same cup of coffee three times because I can’t be bothered to finish it.

The silence gets loud. Some nights it feels like background rain—soft, steady, almost comforting. Other nights, it’s a storm that won’t let up, throwing every memory, every regret, every loss at me all at once. I stand in it anyway.

When I’m alone, I notice things I usually ignore. The way the kettle screams like it has something urgent to say. The way the ceiling seems to listen when I talk out loud because I don’t trust my own thoughts locked inside my head. I’ll set down an extra coffee cup for nobody, like I’m leaving space for people who aren’t here anymore. It looks crazy, but it feels like a ritual—like I’m refusing to let absence erase them.

I replay old conversations, scroll old pictures, listen to playlists that wreck me but still feel like home. Some songs drag me back into versions of myself I thought I’d buried, but I let them. I let the memories come and go. Sometimes I even argue with them. Sometimes I just sit there and let them tear me apart quietly.

I try to take care of myself when nobody’s watching. Cut fruit into small pieces because I know I’ll avoid it later if I don’t. Keep water in the fridge, light candles for no reason, make the space feel safe because sometimes it doesn’t. I’ve learned that even the dumbest comforts matter when you’re the only one holding yourself up.

When I’m Alone, I don’t pretend I’m strong. I just… practice it. Strength looks like sending the text even when I’m scared of being ignored. It looks like dragging myself to appointments I don’t want to deal with. It looks like whispering my friends’ names into the dark, the ones I’ve lost, as if saying them out loud keeps them real.

I cry at stupid commercials. I talk to plants like they can hear me. I stand in the doorway of my son’s room just listening, memorizing the silence of safety. I remind myself I am still here. That my heart is still beating even on days I wish it would quiet down.

When I’m alone, I’m not lonely. I’m just me—unfiltered, uncut, sitting in the wreckage and the beauty of everything I’ve lived through. I am the sum of every door I closed and didn’t die. Every night I thought would break me that didn’t. Every morning I forced myself out of bed when it felt impossible.

Before I go to sleep, I check the locks twice, not because I don’t trust them, but because I don’t always trust life to stay steady. I leave one light on, just in case. For me. For the ghosts. For tomorrow.

And every night, whether I believe it or not, I tell myself the same thing:

I’m here.

I’m trying.

And tomorrow can come.