The Bliss of Solitude

In my seventh grade english class, I remember my teacher requiring all of us to memorize a poem. I selected the poem “I Wandered Lonely As a Cloud” by William Wordsworth. Even all these years later (and it’s starting to feel like a LOT of years, believe me), I still remember this poem. Possibly because even now, the poem’s relevance is still with me – more so than it was when I was twelve. There’s always been a line that has resonated with me: “Which is the bliss of solitude”.

I have always been the kind of person who needs time alone (hey, even Axl Rose said it: “Sometimes I need some time on my own.”). That has always been the case with me. I have always been the type who can sit in a room with the door closed and read or write or listen to music or daydream or do nothing for hours on end. I have often described myself as being somewhat “in my head” about things – if I have something on my mind, though I have some of the greatest friends put on this planet, I have rarely been the type to burden people with what I perceived to be “my problems”. I’ve been the type, instead, to think, dwell, analyze and resolve things on my own. I have always been that way.

But, the problem is, though needing alone time and being a mother aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive, sometimes it is hard to work out the logistics of getting some time to be “in my head” when I don’t even get to go to the bathroom by myself. My love for my kids and the joy for what each day brings is often enough to get me through my funks – but…

Sometimes that’s not enough.

This weekend, it hit me so unbelievably hard that all I wanted to do was go away and be on vacation by myself – wanted to be somewhere where I had no one’s needs to meet but my own, and no one had any expectations of me. I arranged for my mother to take the girls yesterday and then Hubby tells me that he decided he wouldn’t be going to work.

WHAT?!

I know, I know – it’s contradictory, isn’t it, for me to say that I was upset because he was staying home, when I’ve complained for the past several months about how much he’s been gone?! But in my head, I was already READY for the bliss of my solitude – the girls with mom, Hubby at work, and the house so blissfully quiet. It’s not an easy feeling to feel like you need to push away the people you love and who love you, but… I kind of did that.

Hubby went to work. The girls went to spend the day with Grandma.

And after four hours alone, I felt a bit like my old self again. I was in a better mood. I felt a bit refreshed. And I was happy to see everyone again. I know that it is something that I will have to work out in the days and weeks to come, getting better at carving out the time for myself when I need it – rather than let myself get lost in the other chaos of our lives.

I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud – By William Wordsworth
I WANDERED lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed–and gazed–but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.