From Dailymail · · 4m
Alexandra Shulman on learning to be alone
The former Vogue editor traces panic, privacy and grief to ask why solitude is a life skill we rarely teach.
In brief
The former Vogue editor traces panic, privacy and grief to ask why solitude is a life skill we rarely teach. Being alone can be frightening or freeing, but learning to live with it before life forces it on us may be one of adulthood's most useful skills. Originally reported by Dailymail.
A room alone
Shulman starts with the old wish for women to have space, then pushes it further. Space is not only for work or art. It is also for simply being alone.
“But space to just be is also precious.”
Leaving Vogue
Before quitting as editor of Vogue, a Carly Simon lyric stuck in her head. She wanted to find out who she was away from the people and pressure of the job.
“I wanted to know what I would be without them.”
The house changes
With her husband abroad, the home they share feels altered. Hallways echo, the kitchen looks built for more than one person, and bedtime becomes unfamiliar.
“The bedroom feels foreign as I climb into bed”
Some rooms stay steady
Only the bathroom and office keep their usual feeling. At her desk, ordinary noises replace the charged silence that fills the rest of the house.
“Sitting at my desk I don’t hear the silence of the empty house”
First flat, first shock
At 27, she bought a small London flat and learned her bedroom blinds did not shield her from the street. From the bus, strangers could see straight in.
“It was a disturbing thing to find out”
Panic made solitude deadly
Six years earlier, being alone had felt impossible. Her panic attacks made her believe she would die unless someone, anyone, stayed with her.
“If left alone I was utterly convinced that I would die.”
Back to her parents
The attacks were so severe that she left Sussex University life with friends and returned to her parents’ home. At the time, even the phrase panic attacks was new to her.
“I had to have someone, anyone, with me”
Fear of fear
Choosing to live alone meant proving she could do it while knowing panic might return. The real threat was not only fear, but fear waiting to overrule reason.
“the continually lurking fear of fear”
Choice changes everything
Solitude can feel strong when chosen and harsh when forced. The pandemic exposed how quickly being alone can become a painful condition rather than a freedom.
“if done out of choice but less so if out of necessity”
Lonely among people
She separates aloneness from loneliness. A person can be surrounded and still feel cut off, which can be the sharpest form of loneliness.
“It is perfectly possible to be lonely when surrounded by people”
Her own small kingdom
Living alone later gave her total control. Food, music, books, cupboards and wall space all reflected only her tastes and routines.
“The bookshelves were also mine alone”
The mayonnaise test
After a breakup, the fridge made absence visible. A jar of her boyfriend’s favourite mayonnaise suddenly had no reason to be there.
“there was no point any longer in keeping a jar”
Company became normal
Over the next decades, homes filled with partners, children, nannies, au pairs and lodgers. What once felt ordinary, waking and sleeping alone, began to feel strange.
“I had forgotten what it felt like to live with others”
Hotel solitude felt rich
As Vogue editor, work trips made private hotel rooms a treat. Away from domestic routine, having only herself to consider felt luxurious.
“having only myself to consider in that room was a delicious freedom”
Away from the team
She eventually chose separate, more expensive hotels from the Vogue staff. Her authority meant she could never fully be one of the group anyway.
“I wanted the space offered by not being part of the team”
Paris by herself
In gaps between events, she would change clothes, walk Paris, watch the Eiffel Tower lights, sit in brasseries, try to read and eat alone.
“I would eat alone”
Parties, then relief
Fashion weeks offered crowds, dinners and grand homes in Milan. She valued the access, but often felt relief when she returned to her hotel room by herself.
“I always found it a relief to return to my hotel room, alone.”
The tent poles go
In later life, solitude stops being theoretical. By the mid-60s, friends and family can die, and the people holding up a world begin to disappear.
“The tent poles are all going.”
We are not trained
People learn languages, cooking, yoga and countless other skills, but rarely learn how to be alone. Shulman argues that may be one of the lessons we need most.
“learning how to embrace that state, rather than avoid it”
The one thing
Being alone can be frightening or freeing, but learning to live with it before life forces it on us may be one of adulthood's most useful skills.
