Are You an Alone Time Hoarder?

I am definitely an alone-time hoarder. I am always hoarding, saving, and guarding alone time. This isn’t something I became because motherhood is exhausting either. This is simply who I always have been.

What do I mean by “alone time hoarder?”

An alone time hoarder is a person who jealously guards their alone time. They love and cherish being alone. In fact, they will go to ridiculous lengths to keep being alone.

An alone-time hoarder is an awkward name for a hermit or a loner, I guess, but not as extreme as a hermit. A hermit is a time-honored title for the town “weirdo” who lives by themselves and never socializes.

I hoard alone time. I crave it, protect it, seek it, and will beg, borrow, cheat, and steal to get more of it. It’s like how a drug addict must feel about drugs! That’s how I feel about sweet, sweet solitude.

For 13 years, all I got was nap time, and this year allll the boys went to school, and I must be making up for lost quiet.

Here’s how to know if you also are an alone time hoarder:

-You ignore almost all phone calls while the house is empty. Call people back once the house is already noisy again.

-You run home at every opportunity.

-Get a job?? Only if you can work from home….alone.

-As much as possible, you try to not be too early to events because you do not want to be the first person there and have to make awkward small talk with the other first people there. (Now this does not apply to friends. I’m talking about when you are with strangers or acquaintances in a new atmosphere.)

-Your favorite part of the day is when you are alone.

-Being bored is a concept you cannot even imagine. How could anyone ever be bored!!?? There is an endless amount of things you’d like to do at any given moment.

My best work is done best with no interruptions….which is about impossible, but I managed to pull off a victory with these pecan pies.

-You get waaaaay more work done when the house is quiet and no one is around than when other people are around. In fact, having a house full of folks is fun, but it makes your productivity shut down because you feel like you need to focus on the people.

-You are highly reluctant to sign up for new things that will take away from your precious alone time.

-You don’t get enough sleep because there are so many other things you want to do with those hours after everyone else goes to sleep!

-Anytime you are riding in the car, and the person you are with stops to run an errand or go in a store you say, “Can I please sit in the car while you go in?”

Can you relate? Okay, maybe it is an introvert list. Maybe this is even normal. I don’t know. What do you think?

We introverts/loners/alone time hoarders/shy people have to be careful though. The hitch is that humans need other humans. We are a social species. God created us that way.

I will isolate the heck out of myself, and then I’ll find myself out at a function, laughing my head off. Then I am always reminded, “Oh yeah, I DO love people.”

I have always been this way. When I was a child, I loved nothing more than to sit in my room and play Barbies. Once I tired of that, I’d read. I also loved zipping down the road on my bicycle. I adore being in my space, alone with my thoughts. Mom said if anyone wanted to talk to me, they always had to go looking for me first.

I LOVE being alone. Until all of a sudden I don’t.

It takes a large amount of seclusion before I finally reach that point, but then all of a sudden I HAVE to find companionship or at least get out of the house.

If we were always alone, we’d be miserable– even if we don’t think we would be–we would! And we’d miss important moments like this one. This is Daniel making face-down snow angels. Why face down? To be as close to the snow as humanly possible, I suppose.

The problem is I don’t realize I’ve let myself become isolated until I’ve pushed it too far, and I actually become sad. People who spend too much time isolated can become terribly depressed and eccentric.

I suppose there’s a fine line somewhere to be found. Where that line is exactly, I have no idea, but we each have to recognize it and get back out into the world. As much as I’d love to be at home cleaning, writing, and creating forever, without everyone else I think we eventually run out of inspiration and good sense!

But that doesn’t mean I’m going to change anytime soon. You should see this awesome La-z-boy reclining sofa we got. I could sit here and blog for days, well, you know, at least until I start to get sofa butt. Yep. That’s also a thing.

I hope you all manage to get some quiet today. I personally just spent the day alone with four boys on a snow day, bundling and unbundling them, trying to convince John David that snow bibs aren’t evil, drying their clothes, cooking their meals, and settling their disputes. As you might imagine, all my daydreams currently are of a quiet hotel room with a t.v. and room service. Hey, a girl can dream, right?