Fall in Love with Being Alone
Plus my favorite solo meal-prepping tip
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📺 Running Point on Netflix - I binged the entire series in a few days and throughly enjoyed it. The series centers on Kate Hudson as the Waves’ President’s only daughter, stepping into the role of interim President. She’s tasked with proving herself, not just to the league, but to her team, her brothers, and ultimately herself. Hudson delivers a layered performance that balances humor, determination, and vulnerability. What really stood out to me was how the show explored the personal struggles of each character outside the basketball court. These scenarios bring depth to the story and highlight the strong relationships between the siblings as they grow and evolve. The dynamic between them felt heartfelt and authentic. And can we talk about Brenda Song? She absolutely shines as the badass friend and assistant. Her character adds humor and unwavering support, and it’s so satisfying to see her in such a strong role.
📚 Deep End by Ali Hazelwood - Scarlett Vandermeer is swimming upstream. A Junior at Stanford and a student-athlete who specializes in platform diving, Scarlett prefers to keep her head down, concentrating on getting into med school and on recovering from the injury that almost ended her career. She has no time for relationships, at least, that’s what she tells herself.
🥗 Parchment Baked Salmon with Dill Yogurt - If you’re looking for an easy, delicious and healthy dinner, this parchment baked salmon is the perfect recipe. Everything is cooked together in a parchment paper pouch creating an almost mess free dinner that’s not only easy, but yummy, and good for you too! Best part? It’s ready in just about thirty minutes.
Prior to my divorce, I had never lived alone. Really, I had barely spent so much as an hour alone. I structured my 20s to be in constant contact with other people. My (misguided) mantra being: You can’t feel FOMO if you’re never missing out. In college I lived in a house with 5 roommates. Most days, I spent the day with coworkers, attended workout classes with strangers, happy hour with friends, then was back home for dinner with one of my roommates (someone was always home). I realized that I had never, in my entire life, gone 24 hours alone. As Jenna Wortham put it, I had gotten “very good at keeping the lonely away.”
When I seperated from my husband and moved into my own place we decided on 50/50 custodyof our children. Which meant, there were would be days without my children and I would be alone. I felt like I was meeting myself for the first time: Oh, I like eating right after work? Love reading poetry in the morning? Get bored watching movies solo, but love watching shows? It was both exhilarating and exhausting. It challenged the social conditioning author Lyz Lenz named so beautifully, “Women are taught that being alone is the worst thing that can happen to them.”
I learned how to set up utilities, found wall studs, and pushed past my fear of the breaker box. All tasks my husband had previously handled. And there have been bigger lessons too: How to sit in loneliness, make a beautiful meal when I’m the only one to enjoy it, fall asleep and wake up by myself, and not feel weird (or sad) when I laugh out loud at a podcast, and have no one to share it with.
Being alone, I’ve come to realize, is a muscle I haven’t spent a lot of time exercising. I’m learning to live with myself, not by myself. I’m striking the balance between sitting in feelings of loneliness, but not stewing in them. With my therapist’s help, I learned how to just be on my own. This, of course, is when my children are not home with me.
Cooking for one tips
Even on nights I don’t have my children, I still try to cook dinner for myself. Don’t get me wrong, I do partake in the regular girl dinner. But balanced meals are also important to me. In general, cooking has always been important to me, but it’s become a vital part of the way I take care of myself since I’ve been single. Every time I roast a chicken or make myself a big, beautiful pasta, it reminds me that I, alone, am worth the effort. At first, I had to invite friends over to help me eat the food I was making (alas, there is only so much you can freeze!). But a simple strategy helped me nail down my cooking-for-one portions: Every week, I create a loose meal plan around a sauce or dressing.
Here’s how it works: This week, I made a batch of lemon dill sauce. On Sunday, I added it to a fillet of salmon steamed in parchment paper, with slices of lemon. Last night, I turned a leftover fillet of salmon into salmon salad, and paired it with a slice of oat bread layered with salted butter, and heirloom tomatoes. Tonight, I’m planning on roasting a chicken thigh that’s been marinating in pesto, and serving it over lemony orzo.
A few of my kitchen staples
Building a week around a sauce has several benefits: It means that I’m front-ending the time- and cleaning-intensive parts of cooking by making the sauce on Sunday. Plus, the constraints of working around one sauce, have actually made me more creative, which keeps things from feeling boring (as does switching up the sauce each week and eating out a few times each week). The biggest benefit though is that I don’t waste any food: Because I’m building my week around one flavor profile, I can easily repurpose leftovers. It makes cooking for one feel infinitely more manageable—and could easily be scaled to work for any living situation.
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While I don't live alone, it's striking to me how much I relate to HATING being perceived. My MIL is currently living with us post Hurricane Helene and I feel like I have zero privacy. I can't ever relax because someone is always watching my every move. It's so tough! I've been traveling some for work this year to various conferences and I'm relishing in my alone time in hotel rooms.