Self Reflection: Alone — but not lonely
I’m editing pictures I took at a show this Friday at the Drunken Unicorn in Atlanta. All my friends bailed when it came to hanging out, one after the other, three in total — but.
You know, being alone isn’t so bad sometimes. I’m sitting in solace with my thoughts, thinking about the past, present and future. Cringing about moments that I had when was younger in my chair. Scrunching up thinking “goddamn, I thought that was cool?” Yet, at the same time, I’m remembering how far I’ve come and how much I have changed, especially when it comes to photography. Looking back on previous work, to what I have now is always a reminder that I’ve progressed and have moved forward.
I used to dread being alone. I thought maybe it was an indication that something was wrong with me as a person. I used to feel like every Friday night alone sitting in front of the computer meant that I was failing in some way. But, being alone is a chance to recharge and rest, and it’s an opportunity to reflect about the past. Thinking about what you did and didn’t like, how best to move in the future.
2020 was a shit year. I’m sitting in my room playing video games, isolating, thinking to myself: What am I supposed to do? Fresh out of college, recently broken up with someone I was in a relationship with—a relationship that was probably the healthiest I’d ever had up until that point, and now I was home with family. I had a job that was promised to me at a news station as a videographer, and that was taken away because of the unpredictability of COVID.
Maggie FM - Drunken Unicorn
Safety Switch - Drunken Unicorn
Bullshit Jobs: The Road to Independence
I worked like crazy in the years that followed, trying my hardest to become independent, trying to have my own space and be able to afford what I needed. I had an office job at an engineering office, and I handled the social media, all the creative stuff. My first week, a white man who was working in the machining part of the facility was so mad I got hired over him, he asked me,
“So do you have a baby momma, are you in a gang?”
Like, first of all, dickhead — he wasn’t qualified for what I did at all, and before he asked that question, I’d actually offered to send him photoshop tutorials on YouTube, and even told him how I got the job in the first place.
I told my boss, who was one of three black people in the entire building, which included me, who then told the head engineer, a white man, who then told the owner, who was married to a black woman. Everyone performed their outrage, the white people especially.
“Oh we’re so mad, this type of behavior is not what we approve of here. This is unnaceptable, we don’t tolerate that. No, not here, you know the owners wife is black, he’s not gonna let this stand.” Ranted the head Engineer.
The next day,
“We decided to keep him on board, but we’re gonna have a meeting so this doesn’t happen again.”
I often picture the machinists in a room on a Friday during one afternoon, with a dry erase board on “why racism is wrong,” and some 90’s HR video about micro agression or just flatout racism, with no black people even in the room, and square cut microwave pizza and gatorade or soda. The racism didn’t stop by the way, maybe I’ll write about it more one day — anyways.
Posture Clinic - Drunken Unicorn
Another job I had was landscaping, and at first I genuinely did enjoy it. I figured it was nice to be outside, and to watch your progress before and after, you’d get a dopamine boost. You’re getting excercise, your co-workers are all interesting with unique and fun stories. My first day, it was 7:00AM and we loaded up in the truck, huddled shoulder to shoulder. One guy I worked with who didn’t speak much English and instead spoke Spanish my first day pulled out his phone, and showed me a video of a woman twerking, and said,
“Bad bitch, yeah?”
I looked at him and said
“Yeah.”
He then proceeded to show me memes on Instagram, all in Spanish. I didn’t know what they said, but I get what he was going for, I appreciated his effort to connect.
It was great the first week, but a big part of that job was the over time pay, and working more than 60 hours a week two, three, four weeks in a row really takes its toll on you. I was making bank though, but my body hurt all the time. You’re working all day, praying you finish early, then you come home, eat, shower, and then sleep. It’s grueling, and miserable, not because the job itself is entirely exhausting, but because the employers continously worked us to the bone.
Often we didn’t even finish the houses set for the week in time, and we’d get a text “who wants to work this Saturday?” There was never a time to rest, and to be honest, I started to figure out why a lot of the older guys that I worked with were pissed off all the time. Not to mention, get this, I had some co-workers who were pretty racist, again.
The only black employee who was there worked a second job on the weekends and hardly ever rested. He lived in a motel room with his girlfriend who was pregnant with their child, and they shared a single car. He had gotten into an argument, I think with a family member, his girlfriend or old friend, and in the distance at a job site, a white co-worker had seen that.
“He’s violent, I don’t think he should lead the team, he was yelling during the lunch break.”
Ended up demoting him from a crew leader in training, to a crew member employee. Which mean’t he went from being paid $24 an hour - to $18 an hour instead. They also gave the job to a new bald white guy with Nordic tattoos on his fingers, and a penchant for mocking anyone who spoke Spanish, amazing. He also called himself some random nordic name, dude was a dork.
Needless to say me and the other black co-worker who was demoted both agreed on a day we were both going to quit at the same time to fuck the business over for at least a week.
I felt so happy getting that text from the manager asking if I was coming in. Giggling at my phone and smiling, the employees would be fine, the ones I liked. Working on Saturdays was optional, and we always worked the same hours regardless. I just hope they didn’t work anyone too hard since we weren’t there.
Posture Clinic - Drunken Unicorn
Being Alone Was a Nightmare At First
For Christ’s sake, I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing when I finally got to go to places again. I would just show up—alone, talking to some of the harshest people I think I ever met from time to time, or people who were just flatout the most extreme, or the most unhinged. None of it bad, just the people of society who have a lot to say.
One person that comes to mind was a man outisde of a Subway restaurant who was asking for money, and had just got out of prison. I asked him to eat with me, and I won’t lie, his table manners weren’t the best. He smacked a lot, got sauce all over the table, at one point he even started licking his fingers in front of me, chuckling.
Another man walked in at some point,
“Oh I think that guys got a problem with me, he keeps looking over here.” He said.
“Nah man, I think he’s probably just looking around, it’s fine.” I replied, trying my best to get him to chill out.
He leaned back in his chair and straightened his back.
“If someone’s got a problem with me, they need to face me like a man, we’re men, that’s what we’re supposed to do.” He shouted.
I nodded my head.
“Yeah, for sure.”
A few minutes passed in silence, and now he spoke more softly.
“Can you give me a ride to my hotel.”
Give him a ride I did. I wasn’t so sure why I did it at the time. Was it loneliness, or did I feel like I was doing a good thing for someone less fortunate than myself. Did I want the ability to go home and say “see I’m worth something because I helped someone today.”
I was told by my therapist the next year that I did it because I had felt guilt and shame constantly, and needed to prove to myself that I was a good person. A byproduct of feeling ashamed of who I was, but I don’t think that was it, or at least not all of it. I think I just wanted someone to talk to, even if it was someone that kept cutting me off mid convo and making a mess at the table. I couldn’t really get him to open up about much of anything, most of our time was actually him asking me why I was helping him, until,
“My mom and sister don’t really talk to me anymore, I haven’t seen them in years.”
“Is there anyone else you have?”
“Nah, it’s just the both of them, I don’t know where they are, they stopped seeing me in prison a while ago, I don’t even have a number.”
I knew better than to ask what he’d gotten put in prison for, coulda been something so vile and awful, or maybe it was nothing at all, coulda just been at the wrong place at the wrong time, I didn’t know. But I could tell in a way, he had felt guilty about something.
I hadn’t done anything in particular to hate myself, I just hated how my life was going. I felt like I had done everything wrong at that point, like my life was a waste. But this man, this guy, he acted tough, but I think he was hurting, bad, and he was trying to forget, through that one phrase.
“they stopped seeing me in prison a while ago, I don’t even have a number.”
You could just tell it was nagging him.
No support, no love, a random city with no one he knew, a hotel that wasn’t home.
I dropped him off on the other side of town at the hotel, he thanked me, and told me to be less trusting of strangers, waved goodbye, and headed home, confused about the whole experience, or why I even did it. Thinking there’s something wrong with me for doing that.
Therapist said I put myself in danger, and that what I did was a foolish decision. But, I think I did it because it really was a nice thing to do, and I was yearning for company.
Guilt and Fear of Failure
From the time I was a child to when I became an adult I had a nagging thought in the back of my head: not good enough, annoying, weird, I make people uncomfortable, just an unending amount of self pity and hatred. For some reason I had felt like I didn’t deserve even the bare minimum. I think a lot of it had to do with my parents constantly shaming me when I was growing up. Which to their credit, was a really common thing for parents to do, unintentionally mind you. But not having a good job when I came home during COVID, during lockdown of all times. Day in day out just a constant —
“why can’t you find a remote job, COVID’s not that bad, it’s like a cold, go get a job, you’re wasting your life,” every single day.
It was also the fact that I was forced to be alone, and had thought about all my achievments and accomplishments up until that point, all my failures as well. In all honesty there weren’t really too many. wins, or an amount that I would have been satisfied with. I often thought I had made it into college by the skin of my teeth because of a collegiate program I was in.
I never took the SAT, I bombed the ACT on purpose, not because I was stupid, I just genuinely didn’t care, I didn’t have to do good and I knew it. The Collegiate program I was in pretty much meant you could go to any school in Florida once you’re done with it and get your AA, so why bother.
In the past this mindset used to bug me, and I was so irritated when I graduated because a lot of my classmates had medals and ribbons on their caps and gowns when we graduated. Ones’ that listed all their achievments and goals that reached, and I had none. It bugged me back then, but, looking back on it, I genuinely don’t give a shit. None of it mattered, I know so many people who work the best jobs and hate their lives, just like I know some people who work shit jobs and hate their lives. I know people who’ve been in prison, who’ve been chronically ill, who are a bit mentally unsound, who break a lot of norms and social conventions, who job hop every month, who care way more about their craft than they do other things, and they’re some of not only the happiest, but the most thoughtful people I know.
Why? Because they’ve learned from their experiences, and they’re confident and happy with who they are. They found some way to live, and they’ve run off with it. They’re actively trying to leave or have left the rat race. Joy radiates out of them so naturally that they just focus on the immediate moment, the here and now. Present, and aware.
I often distracted myself as a kid, and young adult, ignoring a lot of the thoughts I had. Yeah I had always had this sort of, innate anxiety in my gut, but I often just ignored it by staying up late and playing video games, or hanging out with friends. But at some point, when your friends aren’t able to be around you, and you’re playing the same game you’ve been playing since you were 16 you realize more and more each time, that you’re alone. I used to find being alone to be dreadful, but now I’m genuinely thankful for it. I like being able to rest, and I like doing nothing when I get a chance.
Posture Clinic - Drunken Unicorn
Those negative thoughts have become more like an advisory voice that just exists in me. I don’t give that shit power when I can, and yeah it’s a fight, but I’m winning lately (knock on wood).
Got a job that pays well, just moved to Atlanta out away from my parents, and I’m making such good friends these past couple of years.
Best of all, if someone treats me like shit, I call them out. I tell them they suck, and if someone wrongs me really bad, I let it go. A lot of peoples bad behaviors has to do more with them and their issues, and it’s less so about you, nine times out of ten. (Unless you’re being a dick).
I remember all the breakdowns—the crying fits, the loneliness. I could feel my brain shrinking, my self-worth dwindling. I didn’t get it then, but years later, in the shitstorm that is 2025, I finally figured out that the world is literally fucked, and all this anxiety, all that bad intent, the bad managers at jobs, racist co workers, rude people, and just bad energy all around has nothing to do with me, it was always fucked. It effects me, yes, and it’s best not to ignore it, but it isn’t because of me, I don’t own that energy, it’s being launched at me, and you. Best I can do now is actively try to help make a difference where I can, or brighten up someone’s day, watch the news to stay informed, take joy and pride in the things and the people I love.
There’s joy and love that should come with being in your own company, and there’s time to think and reflect. Time to plan for your next move, and to rest, I mean actually rest. Not thinking about what you should be doing instead of sitting and just being, but actively rest.
Moments like today—I feel alone, but not lonely. I’m comfortable with my own company, happy with what I can achieve and accomplish. Actively thinking about the things that make me elated, and the things that upset me. Saving it for a later day, to move and act accordingly and choose something better.
It’s a gift to be able to sit alone with yourself and think about what you want, what you’re going for, who you’re trying to seek out.
Safety Switch - Drunken Unicorn
When your friends are tired and have to bail, when your day doesn’t go the way you intended, when you’re sitting in your room alone with nothing but your thoughts—it’s a gift. Your reality is your perspective. Your perception is your reality.
So for me, whenever I get sad or have doubts about the future, I just remember that I’m the fucking shit—and it’s all gonna work out one way or another, good or bad.
I’m sharing these photos sprinkled through this article because if I hadn’t been alone for a time, I wouldn’t have practiced photography as much as I did. I’d have been too distracted, lamenting about what I don’t have going for me. But now, right now, I can sit and think, and I can dip more into what the actual move is—the move that’s right for me.