On My Own, Again...

I'm on my own again. It's been three days, and already this apartment feels more like home than the place in Manchester. As I write this, I'm trying to figure out why. I have the same stuff. It's in the same boxes. I'm the same person, and I have the same job. Everything is the same, yet I feel different. It's not the place itself, although it helps. It's that I'm on my own again.

Many times, in many places, to many people, I have said that being alone is my default state of being. It's in my nature to desire to live in solitude. While people have refuted my claims, citing personal history or depression or some other reason why I don't really want to be alone, it's in moments like this that the truth of what I am resonates within me. This new apartment feels like home to me, and it's because I'm on my own again.

I had a three bedroom apartment in Manchester. Ninety percent of the time I spent in the apartment was spent in my bedroom. With my door closed. Despite the fact that I was living with TWO other people, I spent my time alone. It's kinda sad when you think about it. I was paying for a five room apartment and was only living in one of those rooms. I was living with two other people, and I spent most of my time ignoring them. And even though I lived there for a year, that apartment was nothing more than a rest stop for me. Despite my fondest desire, it never felt like home for me.

I don't have to worry about hearing things that I shouldn't. I don't have to worry about things not being where I left them. I don't have to worry about people I don't know appearing with no warning at all. I could go on for days about all the things that I don't have to worry about anymore. I feel remorse about uprooting the lives of the people I lived with, but sitting here in this place, my place, in the still of the night, I know it was the right thing to do. Not for someone else, which is mostly the reason I do the things I do, but for me. I made this move because it was the right thing to do for me.

I'm on my own again and I'm at home.