I like my own company. If you say that to an insecure person, they'll respond, “I like my own company, too.” But they don’t, and you weren’t talking about them anyway. This is why the stillness of being alone is a treasure to those who can withstand it. Any judgment on you happens outside your four walls. The world is an imperfect place. People are the fault line.
I work in a fishbowl office where I can look outside through my front two windows onto Main Street for five hours every weekday. That is what social interaction looks like to me. People interacting with each other, with a door and glass between them and me. When a solicitor comes and opens my door, I am perennially busy. A guy peeked his head in last week with a German shepherd and asked if he could step in for a couple of seconds. I said I was busy. I was busy. I was eating a really good salad and watching Below Deck at my desk. Boundaries.
Everything is impermanent in some way. Things ebb and flow like the water in the stream next to my grandmother’s house in Short Hills growing up. Everything is a slow trickle unless you open the faucet all the way. Sometimes I crank it open out of curiosity, and the tide floods in, covering my new Air Jordans in murky water. I turn the handles tight on both sides and sit on the toilet seat until the world stops spinning.
I am not alone. I have four cats and a guinea pig, some temporarily. My son lives at the end of my driveway over my garage. My daughter is three hours away. I don’t despise my neighbors. In fact, both sides are quite nice. But I do choose to be alone a lot. My son will be gone for the winter, heading to warmer weather, and I will feel a bit forlorn when he goes. Sometimes it’s nice to know someone is that close.
When I was younger, I used to go out at night a lot. From age fifteen, I had a Swedish bus pass that got me in anywhere, and I used it. No bouncer could ever tell what the hell it was. After I no longer needed the Swede, I still went out legally. I realized what a blessing it was when a free night somehow appeared. I was too young to have good boundaries, so I'd avoid answering the phone just to get one night on the couch. That’s my life now, and I love it.
Everything can change. What I value now may not be what I value in two years. There is no way to know. For now, I do what I want, when I want, and with whom I want. Most of the time, that means it’s just a kid and me with several animals, a warm meal, and the comfort of home.
© Jonathan Greene, October 26, 2026
