When I started writing this post months and months ago, I had recently had a text conversation with a dear college friend. It was one of those random, spur of the moment types where you get really deep, really fast.
Originally, I had texted her to tell her exciting news about some thing or another. But, as our conversations have a tendency of doing, it departed pretty quickly from there.
My friend confided in me that even though she had relocated within the US and not off to some country over the sea after college, she still felt so very alone. She said she was terrified of the life she was now living because Harvard was her home. She had yet to make her new city her own, had yet to create a community like the one that we were lucky enough to have at school. And it terrified her.
I realized, as I sat in my new favorite cafe that is tucked away, hidden behind clothing stores and apartment buildings, that there was one vital part of adult life that Harvard had not prepared us for.
Harvard created intense homes and communities for a large swath of its student body. While this was not the experience for everyone (especially those who dealt with the difficulties that came with the class, race, and gender divisions that run rampant at a campus so steeped in patriarchal tradition as Harvard), for my close friend group, Harvard was not just a place where we went to school. Harvard represented a found family, a group of people who we loved to the ends of the Earth and back.
Our family was created in steps. First, thanks to the ingenious sorting of our freshman dean, I was blessed with three new sisters, women who I cannot imagine my life without. Then, thanks to the sorting magic of the Harvard housing system, I was blessed with a fourth sister and a brother. My family now spans states and cultures, professions and music tastes. Thanks to Harvard, I have never felt more loved and supported by a group of peers (let’s be honest, I can’t even call them peers anymore. Calling my blocking group by anything other than their true title, my family, feels empty and sad).
Beyond the people that I got the honor of living with, I also found fast community in other facets of life. From my major to my extracurriculars to my house, I was never without a friendly face.
And this, right here, this continuous interconnectedness, was the problem. Harvard provided us with so many opportunities to surround ourselves at all hours with people that we never learned how to be alone.
The furtherest we would have to travel to find our community was a half an hour, from the Quad to Mather. How entirely lucky were we, to live in a world where no matter how alone we felt on the inside, in reality, our friends were always (physically) within reach.
During our last few weeks at Harvard, some of our many advisors tried to start warning us about the massive changes that were coming up. But I’m not sure that we were really adequately equipped to face the world outside of the comforts of Harvard.
Now, my friends with whom I was never more than a half an hour away from live as physically far away from me as a person can (at this point; that will change if Elon Musk ever concentrates on a project for longer than a second). I am isolated in ways I have never been before in my life.
But.
I somehow don’t feel alone.
I feel like my original expression of these feelings, as encapsulated in my text language, explains this concept the best:
“something that i have found to be extremely empowering living here, so far away from everyone, is taking that terror, that fear of isolation, and embracing it. becoming my own island unto myself, and taking the space and the quiet to piece apart the aspects of myself that were drowned out by all of the noise and love that i was so lucky to have with all of you at harv.”
I was so blessed to have the love and support of everyone in my life at Harvard. But, I was never afforded the chance to really truly work on parts of me, by myself.
And this is not to say that my time at school was without struggles and difficulties. Because I had my fair share of hardships during my four years, regardless of my community.
But.
When I would go to cafes within any reasonable radius of campus to write my thesis senior year, it would be an inevitable guarantee that I would run into someone.
No matter what time of day or night, there was a really good chance of being able to wander downstairs into my dining hall and finding someone.
Here in Seoul though, where the city never seems to slow down, I can go days without seeing a familiar face. If I didn’t have to work in an office with the same people almost every day, I could go months without speaking to someone that I know.
How simultaneously freeing and terrifying that is. That I am so entirely alone in a city, in a country where I can only passably communicate.
Terrifying in that if something goes wrong, I have fewer people to turn to for help.
Freeing in that I am finally, for the first time in my life, alone.
Being so alone has taught me more lessons than I can even think to mention.
First off, it has taught me how to eat in restaurants by myself without feeling like the world is about to cave in.
It has also taught me to value companionship in the varied little forms that you find it scattered through your life. In the smiles of the faculty at my work; in the giggles of my kiddos when I say something particularly amusing; in the relief of a lunch, a dinner, a game night out with other exhausted adults who need an escape from the stress and drudgery of their day to day jobs.
I have also learned to value the companionship that I give to myself. For a long, long time, I honestly did not get along with myself very well. Whenever I had a spare minute alone, my internal dialogue with myself always seemed to turn abrasive and aggressive, focused primarily ripping to shreds every single thing I had done in my life up to that point.
For a long, long time, the life that I was living was never good enough for me. And I heard that, repeated over and over again in my head whenever I had a moment of quiet, a moment of time alone.
My solution for a long time was just, then, never be alone. To avoid the pain and frustration of dealing with myself, I would distract my inner thoughts with friends and family and life. With togetherness.
Having that crutch taken away from me has forced me to finally, finally piece apart those parts of myself that I tried to drown out.
I can say that I still have days where I am too hard on myself. Where I berate myself for buying expensive coffee or not doing enough to change the whole world like I am supposed to.
But.
I also have days now where I can happily take myself on a date to my favorite museum, to my favorite cafe, to my favorite clothes store. I can spend hours just basking in the gentle quiet of my own company.
How freeing it is to finally be able to make peace with myself.
How terrifyingly freeing to be so alone.
Adventures of the Seoul 