I have nothing better to do with my time.

Another April. Another attempt at blogging every day.

I suppose I will get the necessary life updates out of the way up front: I have completed two terms at Oxford. I am spending my Easter holiday in Oxford by myself. And I am  freshly single after my latest romantic disappointment.

The month spreads out before me, a large expanse of days waiting to be lived. But it is a bleak landscape. The spring weather has added light and hopeful colours, but it has no effect on me. The month that lies ahead promises only blank days of solitude. My friends in Oxford have all gone home or on holidays. The only person I was planning to spend time with in Oxford was Tom, but now that is over.

I spent a lot of time alone growing up. The youngest of four children, solitude was a precious commodity when we were young so I actively sought out chances to pass time by myself. When I was a little older, from the age of ten until I graduated high school and moved away from home, my time spent alone wasn't a choice. My mother, previously a stay-at-home mom, went back to work, and so after school, I would be dropped off at the house hours before anyone in my family came home.   Every day from 3pm to 7pm, I would have the house to myself. Those hours were not particularly pleasant. Our house was too big and it's empty rooms were too quiet. I would turn on the TV and the radio just to fill the silence. Since we lived on a farm, I felt even more isolated - cut off from the rest of the world by twenty-five acres of fields.

I found the solitude so unnerving that I started letting the dogs into the house just for company. I formed an unnaturally close bond with Birdy and Goose during those years - I would tell them all of my secrets, all of my thoughts and feelings. When I said goodbye to Goosie before coming back to Oxford after Christmas, I knew it would be the last time I saw him. I hugged him tight and cried, my heart breaking for my beautiful friend. And even though I knew my parents were planning to put him down, when I got the email letting me know he had died, I cried even more. He and Birdy will always be my dogs - all of the new puppies my parents have gotten this year can't compare.

All of this is to say that I am used to spending time by myself. But I am not looking forward to this month of loneliness. I am an introvert so I need some time to myself to decompress. Too much time alone, however, makes me uncomfortable. I feel on edge, unsettled. I get lost in the thorny forest of my dark thoughts. One of the first things my psychiatrist told me last year when I first entered treatment for my depression, was to surround myself with a support system and not to cut myself off from the world. Even if I feel horribly depressed, one of the best things to do is to get out of bed. 


This past week I have been forcing myself out of bed. I get up, I make the bed, I pick out an outfit, I put on makeup, I leave the house. But I don't have anyone to see. I don't have anything to do. So I end up at this Starbucks, where the employees recognise me and know my order. I sit upstairs in the sunny room packed with tables and armchairs, surrounded by a mixture of tourists, teenagers, locals, and students. And even if I am just on Tumblr for hours, at least I am not alone in my room.

So blogging every day this month will give me something to do. I will be forced to put my thoughts into words and hopefully it will help pass the time.