Solitude

I crave solitude.

Which is quite the about-face for a confirmed card-carrying Extrovert.  In the final quarter of 2017, my world spiralled out of control, careening from side to side like a car spinning on ice, bouncing from one concrete life barrier to the next.  I had to stop and get off the rollercoaster to reclaim my sanity.  I just didn’t realize that in order to do so, I had to shed not just longtime friendships and old habits, but embedded expectations and deeply ingrained beliefs.  Sure, I was trudging bravely ahead, one foot in front of the other, but I wasn’t getting anywhere except falling deeper into depression, denial and demons.  And the back talk from my very own mind was the height of insolence.

“Go inward,” counselled my mentor Carrie*.  Her words rattled around in my head like the angry circus lion pacing in his austere cage.  While…