I saw this video on Superhero Journal. I found it melancholy and beautiful. What do you think of it?
How To Be Alone
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My name is Gabrielle Blair. I'm a designer and mother of six. We currently live in a farmhouse in the French countryside. I post on where design and motherhood intersect.
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{ 33 comments… read them below or add one }
Very nice. It almost makes me wistful for my single days, when I got to revel in time with myself. I loved public transportation, benches by myself, libraries, cafes–places I could be alone and watch people, or have a conversation with someone I wouldn’t have otherwise if I hadn’t been alone. I took myself to international movies. And it wasn’t lonely.
i just posted that video too. i found it via bananasaurusrex.
Next time I see someone talking to a statue, I’m going to resist the urge to judge, because really they’re just exercising their right to be by themselves. It’s a refreshing viewpoint.
This film is beautiful and I’ll watch it again during the fall, when it’s darker and cloudier and knitting is at the top of my list of “things to do alone on a park bench.” I’m looking forward to it.
This was nice.
This is why I cherish alone time. For all the reasons she mentioned.
Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for sharing this. I wish I had seen this years ago. A very important lesson for all…
Being the mother of six children I have found that being alone is the only way to be “off duty.” When you’re a wife and mother, if you are in the presence of another human you are “on duty.” As my youngest goes off to college this year I have looking forward to having more alone time and learning how to enjoy it. This video was a great reminder of all the ways I can use my alone time. Thank you for sharing, Gabby!
Absolutely beautiful!
I saw this the other day. As someone who truly enjoys “me time”, I really loved it!!
When I stopped working [my life away] a few years ago, I truly learned how to be alone. And I absolutely love it. I am not afraid of it, but crave it. My time to think, reflect, dream, plan, create, recharge.
She is right, that society is afraid of being alone. Going, spending, working, doing- nonstop- all in an effort to get “away” from themselves.
We’re trying to teach our kids the value of alone time early on so that when the time comes in their lives when they are alone, they run towards it and not away from it.
such simple prose…i fell in love. thank you for this nice reminder.
I require quiet, alone time even for 10 minutes a day. I grew up surrounded by eight brothers and sisters. I have three loud, boisterous wonderful kids, so it’s strange that I require or even enjoy this type of solitude, but I do! Last night I was waiting in the lobby of the Stake offices for an interview, along with four other people. I felt uncomfortable sitting there quietly, so I whipped out my cell phone, then realized how pathetic that is that I turn to it instead of to people. Anyway, I loved that she said, “RESIST THE URGE TO HANG OUT WITH YOUR CELL PHONE.”
Beautiful. I love that I’m able to say I lived alone for a time in my life. I was totally content with who I was and my situation. Ironically, shortly after I reached this peace – I met my true love.
Lovely! Makes me think of my first apartment I had all to myself. In was in an old college dorm that had been renovated. I had radiators and old creaky floors. I had large windows with big trees outside. I loved to sit with my cereal and look out the window. I loved to hole myself up some days and make pasta. I loved to dance and sing in my living room, pretending to be Alanis Morissette. LOL!
Going to the movies alone has become one of my favorite special outings since becoming a mom.
Best,
Tina
Absolutely so beautiful. I love the message and how she delivered it. The cadence of her voice was perfect.
Love this! I think alone time can be daunting to some women, especially those of us who went from our parents’ house to a new place with a partner. I’ve never lived alone, and though I feel 100% blessed to have a husband and son who amaze me daily, I would like, at some time, to really be on my own…maybe in another country?
I crave time to sit with my life: to read, to write, to daydream. It’s difficult in this culture to carve those little moments out, but I believe it is essential to have even five or 10 minutes a day just to check in with ourselves.
Thanks for sharing this, Gabrielle!
xo
Love it.
Beautiful! Simply beautiful!
Yes, Beautiful! I will be sharing this! Thanks…
I saw this video over there as well.
I needed to hear this again, today. “Alone is okay.” Amen. Having just celebrated my 14th anniversary and with baby #4 on the way, alone doesn’t happen very often, but I do sometimes feel lonely. It’s good to look at that from different angles. Thanks for reposting.
I love this. I think I forgot. Thanks for the reminder.
This was absolutely perfect, and a lesson I learned well (albiet painfully at first) when on the receiving end of an unwanted divorce and even less-wanted weekend visitations, when I was truly alone for the first time in my life. It took years to make peace with that, but I did eventually learn that being alone is not only not the end of the world, but can be a place of healing and strengthening. I came to love the quietness and time it offered me.
Poetic and breathtaking — I loved it!
This was so well done, and truly a gift to come to the point that you can find the freedom in being alone. She is a gifted poet and I love her accent!
I am a writer, and alone a lot. She did a beautiful job of expressing what alone is. It struck me as more quietly celebratory than melancholy.
I knew it was going to go viral. How could it not. I wrote a post about it here http://bebeloo.blogspot.com/2010/08/blog-post.html
That’s Awesome…I am not alone…But if I were…I would watch this everyday.
@Moxie_Collins
i love the little animations…it is a good message to send.
alone shouldn’t have to mean lonely.
i like this. but i completely agree with both beautiful and melancholy!
: )
Great reminder to “resist the urge to hang out with your cell phone” when dining alone. I catch myself doing this when eating alone or while waiting for friends, even after a long day of working in front of the computer. Thanks for posting!
I loved this video when I saw it too, for all the same reasons listed above. Because of that, I sent it to my sister, whom I love dearly. She is 33, lives in a mother-in-law apartment attached to my parent’s house, has never dated, and has told me in the past that she doesn’t want children because she values her alone time too much. However, after I sent it to her we were having a conversation about something else, and she brought it up that it was rude to send her a video about loneliness. I told her I didn’t mean it in that way, and she agreed with that, then dropped the subject. So my question is, did anyone that IS alone feel embarrassed or hurt by the content of the video. I thought it was beautiful.
A beautiful breath of fresh air. Everyone should have this permission to be themselves, whoever that is.
Love, love loveeeeee this.
I think this film has a lot of truth in it…even if you are with people in your daily life and family, you are always alone in certain times of the day…or when you do your hobbies…where you can just think and not be judged…there is a freedom in being alone..even if just during short moments of the day. i don’t think this film is sad really, it’s more a reminder to do what you love and that will fulfill you and bring you happiness!