Have you ever seen the movie Rear Window? The opening scene shows the injured protagonist, played by Jimmy Stewart, looking through his (rear) window into the other apartments in his complex, catching glimpses of his neighbor’s lives.
On the walk back down from the tippy top floor after a quiet night spent at my neighbor’s apartment upstairs, I found myself pausing at each landing to consume the different sights and sounds of the building. A woman practicing her music, maybe even for a performance of some kind. A man playfully arguing with a friend over a subject unknown. One of the doors open and welcoming guests, a peek inside showing plants and lots of warm-toned furniture. An apartment with purple mood lighting playing Top40 and EDM house music on weekend nights.
It extends outside of my apartment, too. A man rollerblading, uphill I might add, around dinnertime. A new dive bar full of old men in leather jackets opening around the corner. Jazz music blasting out of a dimly lit restaurant. People going for a jog, walking their dogs, meeting on first dates, kissing on corners, running into friends on the sidewalk, crying on the subway.
There’s a word for it, for that fleeting realization that other people are living vastly different lives, with vastly different stories and characters and circumstances; it’s called “sonder”. And I do it all the time now.
That’s the crazy thing about moving from a small-ish town to a big (very big) city: you start having constant realizations of how many people exist in the world and that, even if you’re surrounded by all of them at once, you can still feel totally alone.
I’ve started doing this thing, this tiny thing, as an act of self care. It’s simple, really. I pick a restaurant, one I have been wanting to try or one that I love but don’t go to often. I get decently nice-looking (makeup optional), arrive, and request a table for one. Basically, I take myself on a date. On a more general level, I have started acquainting myself with being by myself. Sometimes, I bring a book with me (I usually have one in my purse anyway) so that I’m not spending my alone time with my phone instead me.
I used to think of myself as an outgoing extrovert, as someone who needed to be around people all the time to fill up my tank. But similarly to how I’m convinced antibiotics ruined my digestive health, the pandemic ruined my social health. Unfortunately, my friends can attest. I started shutting out, preferring to stay in and turning down invites to things I normally would have spearheaded. I lost the confidence I had before, when I didn’t have a problem talking to strangers and I buzzed off of the energy of a large group.
In a positive light, I was able to practice saying “no” to things I didn’t want to go to or people I didn’t want to be around, being able to set boundaries and keep them. Being home alone became my favorite thing. But once I moved across the country, being alone couldn’t be an option. I needed to start building a community and enliven the social part of me that lost herself in the pandemic. Luckily, I have found it and continue to expand upon it. Still, I practice being alone, learning to be comfortable with showing up even if it means I’m the only person without a companion. Because at the end of the day, and at the end of it all, I’ll always have to be with myself. So, I might as well learn to enjoy my own company.
Just me, myself, and a plate of short rib ragu.
Shit I Can’t Stop Thinking About
I recently read my fellow Sacramento-creative-friend Vanessa’s newest essay from her newsletter, The Vssl (go subscribe ASAP), titled “I Had a Best Friend Once”. It was deeply personal, moving, and encapsulated so much of what I’m currently feeling trying to make friends in adulthood (in a new city nonetheless), while also maintaining the friendships back home that I have had since I was a teenager. This particular passage got me choked up:
“I think that’s the element achingly absent in adult friendships: history. You can’t manufacture a past. You can only start at day one with any one person, fill them in on the important stuff, and see where it goes.”
This playlist, made by yours truly, that attempts to phonically emulate summertime. Regularly played in my headphones walking through Williamsburg, and it definitely holds up, even now.
This installment from Haley Nahman’s newsletter Maybe Baby about a “theory of instability as the ultimate equilibrium”, her words.
A re-examining of the importance of non-romantic relationships from by Rhaina Cohen for the Atlantic.
A live rendition mashup of happier + deja vu by Olivia Rodrigo that would have been top of my Spotify Wrapped if it was on Spotify.
Yes, I have succumbed to the Emily-Mariko-Tiktok-salmon-rice-bowl-hype. And it’s so good. Like, I’ve had it multiple times.
If you have HBOMax, I recommend watching the critically acclaimed film Promising Young Woman. It mentally f*cked me up and was horrifying, yet insightful.