One 2017 goal – be more comfy alone at home

[MidlifeBookworm]

Looking back at 2016, the first year I lived totally alone in a long time, I can see that one mistake I made was never getting comfortable with consistently being at home alone in my apartment. I got into a couple of bad habits. One was that with nobody checking on me I let my apartment get very messy, books everywhere, typical “bachelor pad”/ manchild living environment – not good! I ended up spending a lot going out for coffee and cake most days in my neighbourhood just to escape my apartment. I also would get lonely at times and rather than just use mindfulness and sit with that feeling and let it pass, I would spend a lot of money going to pop concerts or the cinema with Meetup.com groups again just to escape my apartment but also just to be with people. I plan to still go to the cinema quite a bit, but I want to go to fewer concerts as the ticket prices can be expensive especially if I end up having a drink or two or getting a taxi home. I will still go to cafes but will try to combine that with meeting up with others, instead of going by myself just to get away from a messy apartment. I am taking steps to be tidier, have given a lot of books aways to a charity shop, but it’s an ongoing thing to keep on top of clutter and make my home a comfortable relaxing place where I am happy to spend the evening. I suspect some people in this group might be introverts or bookworms and quite happy to be at home sometimes, but do others have the same issue I am working on, of not feeling settled at home and spending too much money going out whether that be by yourself, with friends, or with Meetup groups?

[mariposa]

I think that’s a great goal, and in my experience, it’s something that gets easier with time and practice. I’ve lived on my own for the past several years after living with friends for most of my 20’s, and I remember feeling quite unsettled at first about how to fill all that time by myself. But now, for the most part, I enjoy it and even crave it when life gets too busy. I still get lonely, but much less often, and I find now that those feelings are more related to specific life events or situations than just simply being alone. It sounds like you have the right approach and with time I think you’ll find it gets better.

And I agree that it can be easy to slip into bad habits when you live on your own. I’ve been doing some thinking lately about the things that I sometimes don’t do, and how often my reasoning for not doing those things is that it’s “just me”. Which leads to the bigger question of why that is and what that says about how I sometimes feel about myself. One of my new year’s resolutions is to cook more. I CAN cook, I just don’t very much, and too often my dinner is some version of takeout, grocery store sushi, peanut butter on toast, or a random stirfry/wrap/salad thrown together with whatever I happen to have in the fridge. And all of that is fine, but just reflective of the fact that I often don’t put a lot of thought into it. If it would be worth doing for someone else then it should be worth it for me too, so I’ve been reflecting on this lately and trying to get away from that “it’s just me” mentality. Only four days in, but so far so good!

[MidlifeBookworm]

Here is one odd thing I’ve noticed – when I “spend out” and heat my apartment properly on a winter’s night it feels ten times nicer to be in – I will need to check how much it costs per evening but our winters are fairly mild in the UK, compared to the likes of Canada. When I scrimp and have a cold apartment I end up lying in bed earlier just to get warm, and then that throws my sleep pattern off too. I think I actually can afford more heating and it’s the same “it’s just me” mentality which you say makes you eat less well than you would if partnered up. Eating well at home is a lot less than restaurant meals that couples are having so I should look into that too. Just today I bought a ticket for a book signing by “Deliciously Ella” a food blogger who’s known in the UK for promoting healthy eating, maybe that will inspire me a little :)

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