It's official folks: I don't like living alone.

After leaving Twin Oaks, I struggled with the solitude. I eventually adjusted, I suppose, but much of my adjustment was achieved by adopting solitary habits.

Good solitary habits: playing guitar, drawing, art-ing, reading, running/working out, cooking without worrying about anyone watching.

Bad solitary habits: spending hours and hours online, starting to watch TV, buying too many things from Amazon because of all the time online, not bothering to clean because no one is around to see it, becoming obsessed with running/working out, not bothering to cook because no one is around to judge me when I eat yogurt for almost every meal.

This summer, I spent barely any time alone. I was with Ryan, or I was farming with others, or I was hanging out with a group, or I was taking care of a kid. What little time I had alone was almost exclusively spent pursuing my good solitary habits rather than my bad.

And now I'm back. Alone. I don't like it. I don't think it encourages me to be a good person, to grow, to create. I want to have other people right here, at my fingertips, intertwined in my life.

There is a space around me, an emptiness, that I had almost forgotten. I worked so hard to forget it last year. I don't want to forget it again; I want to fill it.