Editor’s note: “Alone versus Lonely” is a column dedicated to the explorations of time spent alone in college, and to navigating the inevitable college loneliness in all its unique forms.
It is with a heavy, but luckily less lonely heart, that I say welcome to the last column of “Alone versus Lonely.”
I want to thank all of my readers, however loyal and however lonely. I would like to thank all of my close friends and family who I have confided in about writing this column and I would also like to thank the years of fair \-weather friends who have helped inspire it.
I would also like to thank Sophie Knight for being the best editor I could ask for.
And thank you to Falinna Fang for the lovely illustration that accompanied each column.
All school year, for a grand total of 15 columns, I have thrown my heart out on the line for the sake of loneliness, and hoping that I wasn't alone in it. And I don't believe that I was.
Yet if there is anything I love, it’s a sentimental gaze down memory lane. The intersections and alleyways of loneliness which we explored together included competitive academics, on-campus social groups, our own hearts, our crossed fingers, New Year’s resolutions, kitchens, handwritten notes, valentines, playlists, art museums, our very own Burke-Gilman trail, into gap years, and now into a goodbye see-you-later note.
Ultimately, college is an experience flourishing in a diverse and expansive array of montage-worthy moments and melancholy; pure excitement and gratitude; solitude and belonging.
We get to fall in love with everything, from people to their potential, and get our hearts broken and stitched back together. We get our hopes up and dashed, change our minds, accomplish goals and set new ones. We get to cross our fingers and swear by pinky promises and come up with secret handshakes. We cry tears over a variety of reasons, laugh at everything, walk home from parties, learn to let friendships go, and how to create new ones.
And even with other people around and adjacent, so many of these moments, monumental or miniscule, are the results of decisions we make alone and feelings we feel alone. And as daunting as that is, it can also be kind of beautiful.
We learn how to trust ourselves. We learn that we are capable of surviving our loneliness. We learn that spending time with ourselves, even alone or lonely, is important, informative, and even grounding. And we learn that we can hold our loneliness with our joy and a million other feelings all at the same time.
If there is anything you take away from this column, please let it be a willingness to be lonely and a willingness to be alone. Because ultimately, neither feeling is one we can outrun, but both can be learned from.
So as summer begins to saunter into our lives, one sunny day at a time, please take a moment or two to reflect on your favorite moment of the school year spent with friends, and a favorite moment spent alone, and see that there was beauty in both. That you can be your best self in both.
One of the least lonely things that I have ever done in my life is write this column, so thank you for that. Thank you for exploring the spaces between what it is to be alone versus what it is to be lonely with me.
If your loneliness ever becomes overwhelming, the UW Counseling Center provides services via secure Zoom and in person and can be reached at 206-543-1240during regular business hours.
Reach columnist Maizy A. Green at opinion@dailyuw.com. X: @GreenMaizy. Bluesky: @maizyagreen.bsky.social.
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