Tag: alone

Learning to Be (more than okay) Alone
fitness

Learning to Be (more than okay) Alone

Mina4 Comments

Learning to Be (more than okay) Alone

As you may have noticed these past months, I’ve been exploring how it is to do various things alone—drinking champagne, eating dessert—and those explorations were, of course, really about doing other things alone—hiking, biking around a new city, lazing in a city park and so on. I’ve been thinking a lot about all the qualities and sensations of being alone. All the different things I do alone. How each thing feels different when I do it alone, from when I do it with another person. How some things, which I never thought could be good alone, are.

In fact, it is this discovery, that more things than I expected are actually quite good when done alone, that has provoked this current deep dive into the varieties of aloneness. It took me some time to get here. My marriage definitively ended about two and a half years ago, so I’ve had some practice at this alone business. And I resisted the potential for good in the experiences until quite recently.   

Sports were where I really learned how to do things alone. Specifically, training for ultra marathons was the first time I started clocking serious time alone. Now I do almost every sport, almost all the time, alone, except my occasional Saturday morning runs with friends. Before the ultras, I had multiple running partners. We kept each other company on long training runs preparing for marathons. When I got into the ultras, I didn’t have much company and began to figure out this alone-ness. Until I surprised myself by enjoying the liberated feeling of heading out for hours alone in the mountains or threading through different parks in the city.

In these last few years, I’ve gone through this same process with quite a lot of other activities.

An Incomplete List of Things I Do Alone (which I used to do mostly with another person)

All the sports, most of the time, including …

Run—on roads and trails

Cycle—on roads and trails

Cross country ski

Snowshoe.

Hike

Yoga

Cross-Fit

Also …

Binge Netflix

Go to the movies

Fix magnetic kitchen cupboard door clasps

Rehang the tricky, heavy mirror over the fuse panel

Grocery shop

Go to the farmer’s market

Cook meals

Eat meals

Go to a coffee shop for the occasional breakfast or afternoon macchiato

Go home after dinner with friends (including my own birthday dinner)

Take the subway home late at night

Plan trips

Fly on planes

Wake up on weekend mornings (well really all mornings)

Dance

Go for walks

Take naps

Sleep

An Incomplete List of Things I Haven’t Quite Figured Out How to Be More Than Okay About Doing Alone:

  • Go to the theatre, live dance performance or the movies. It turns out that what I love about live performance or seeing a movie in the theatre is diving into conversation afterward with my companion, to prolong the delight or bemoan the time we can’t get back.
  • Swim in a pond or lake. Partly because of water safety drilled into me at long ago summer camp. And I know that’s not the whole reason.
  • Cook an elaborate meal.

With each experience (on these lists and so many others) there is a process of acclimatization to aloneness, like what I went through in sports. A process of familiarization. Of figuring out how it (whatever it is) works alone. What works alone. How the experience is different. What are the pleasures. And the disappointments. Because to be sure, there are those too. Which is why the title of this piece includes the phrase, more than okay, and not some version of the word, joy.  Most certainly, some alone-ness is joyful. And I’m not fully emancipated from my deep-seated desire to be in connection with another human being while experiencing life. Chocolate cake is delicious, and it tastes better with someone I love (friend, family or intimate partner).

A slice of chocolate layer cake from Yiseul Han on unsplash

And then there’s last night, when I finally closed my computer after a disheartening study session for an exam I’m taking in a couple of weeks and, sitting on a chair to take a breath, I had a vivid and visceral desire for a light hand on my shoulder. A gentle kiss on the top of my head.   

The past couple of weeks my Saturday runs have been alone. I’ve gone up to the Cloisters Museum, a run I’ve been doing for more than 30 years. Every person who has ever been beside me on that run comes with me in my heart. And I’m there, at every age I’ve ever been on that stretch of road. Still here. In the company of spirits who lighten my step.

cycling · fitness

Sam gets better this winter at going it alone

Sam B12 Comments

treeOne theme that’s been running through my winter fitness activities this year is that of bravely doing things alone. That’s  tough for me. I’m not great at meeting new people and I spend most of my time working alone (thinking and writing, it’s what professors do a lot) so when it comes to the evening, the weekend, and physical activities I’d rather have company. People praise me for being good at bringing people together. I’m a social connector by nature and I love to introduce people to other people I know they’d like. I organize group cycling trips, cross country skiing outings, dog hikes, and hot tubbing after too. I know people like my facilitating but it often serves my needs as well. I want to do hard physically challenging things and I want to spend time with a select group of people so when I can, I try to merge the two things.

Existing friends joke when they meet a new friend, “Has she got you riding a bike yet?” Yes, I’m sorry. It’s true. I’m that person. Honestly though, it’s a sure sign I like you. If I really like you, I’ll suggest long rides and bike trips too. Or Aikido. Or weight lifting. Or all of the things.

Really, there isn’t anything fitnessy that I wouldn’t rather do in the company of people I know and love.

But this winter for a variety of reasons there’s been less of the sporty togetherness. Family and friends have their own things on. My teens are growing up. Mallory is in New Zealand. So if I want to do the things I want to do, I’ve had to do them alone.

I’ve been going to the MEC Indoor Cycling class on my own. See On Doing Difficult Things and it’s been okay. I put out a call for friends to come with the first week but no one was having it. Leaving the house before 8 in the morning on a Sunday just isn’t the sort of thing most people want to do. Who knew? Nat was especially opposed to pants. Jeff just had surgery but frankly didn’t want to come before surgery either.

In a different category of brave, I went to a burlesque class on my own. See Sam has fun at body positive burlesque. Way outside my comfort zone! Again, I put out the call but friends declined. Too femmey, it was on Valentine’s Day, and the weather was awful. Fine. Strangers and burlesque–two scary things together–but I went and it was fun.

This weekend it was fat biking on my own. A local bike shop had a demo set up in a local conservation area with a dozen bikes there for the trying. There were trails to go out on but no real organized groups. Jeff came with me for the drive out there through the sunny countryside but riding a bike in the snow holds zero appeal for him. I think it’s a blast but we don’t all have to like the same thing. (As my mother used to say.) When we go there I was ready to not get out of the car but once I did everyone was nice. There were plenty of women there, some even my age. That helped. They set me up on a bike and off I went into the woods. Again, fun.

Each of these things would have been more fun with friends. But faced with a choice between not doing them and doing them on my own, I’ll go it alone.

I’m appreciating these days how small a group I’m in, liking the things that I like. And wanting to do them will mean heading out on my own. I think as I get older it’ll be challenging to find companions with whom to ski, canoe, bike, run, and lift weights. More and more, I’m getting funny looks from my peers when I talk about the things I love to do. Luckily I’m okay with younger people and I don’t always need to be the fastest or the fittest.

Note: It’s also true that I’m not always on my own. I’ve been skating with Jeff, skiing and fat biking with Sarah, and riding the trainer with Chris, Tracy, Annette, and Kim. There’s still lots of fitnessy togetherness in my life.

Another note: This is different than the discussion we’ve had here before about training alone or with others. These are group activities and they’re not alone workouts. But they are strangers, not friends. And the challenging bit is getting there. Once there, it’s all fine. I just need to remind myself of that.

How about you? Do you mix friends and family and your fitness activities or do you train alone or with a group that you only know because you train with them? How does it all fit together for you?