Up to a year ago I would have said that I was by nature a solitary person. The brethren lifestyle is one of pretty near constant companionship, and that was something I always found difficult. I do like my personal space.
But this has been the first weekend for many months that I have spent alone and it has felt quite empty, to my surprise.
One thing that is different to my expectations of life away from the brethren is that I don't have a lot of time. I imagined that once I was free from the eternal round of meetings and obligatory visitings, I would have the space to achieve many of the things I'd always wanted to do. Yet I hadn't really reckoned on housework - well, I had, but not that when combined with a day's work it can leave a person feeling like there's no urgent rush to get non-essential things done. And other free time when spent with valued company seems too precious for activities that could be undertaken alone.
So I thought this weekend would be a good one in that regard. I had a vague mental list of things that I had been wanting to do.
In the event, I didn't do too much. Saturday was spent looking forward to visitors in the evening, and then the visitors came and went. Enjoyably, I hasten to say, but I did feel more alone than before afterwards, and it really wasn't very long compared to the weekend. And most of my list has remained vague.
It's odd, but I have become used to being part of a unit that isn't just me, and that isn't something I particularly expected to do very soon.
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I agree with your observation about 'near constant companionship'. Looking back, it seemed that one could depend on such relationships a bit more than is common in non-brethren friendships. No matter how bored you were with a friendship, that person would still be there the next time you went to meeting. People didn't (at least in my experience) disappear from life as much as they seem to out here in the real world.
I had a cohort of boys (and a few girls) about my age who I would meet from time to time at fellowship and special meetings. We always seemed to find one another and expected to spend some time together. Sometimes I think of those people, now grown, and wonder if they carry those memories the way I do. Life goes on.
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