It wasn’t the first time I’d been alone. I’d traveled to London on business, flown cross-country on my own any number of times, and taken a weekend escape by myself now and then.

But this was different. This was an entirely new rabbit hole.

Officially and recently divorced, I was single and solo after 24 years of being married to my senior prom date. And I was about to spend two entire months in an 800-square-foot cottage on the Gulf of Mexico, just steps from the ocean on a little spit of sand called Cape San Blas.

Intentionally embracing our solitude (as opposed to simply experiencing our loneliness) has been shown to have specific benefits — namely, freedom, creativity, intimacy and spirituality. (Long & Averill, 2003)

My own quest was for inner peace — a cessation (even temporary) of the chorus of voices in my head that had an opinion on every action I took, every plan I made. I was desperate to find some inner quiet and turn off the committee that ruled and judged my life. I needed to rid myself of the underlying anxiety I’d been sparring with for years.

Like Alice in Lewis Carroll’s classic novel, I felt I’d lost my true voice over the years and was speaking, acting and living to please the rest of the world — at the expense of myself.

“You’re not the same as you were before,” the Mad Hatter says to Alice. “You were much more … ‘muchier.’ You’ve lost your ‘muchness.’”

Maybe here I would get my “muchness” back.

After two days on the road, I pulled into the sand drive leading up to my little yellow fortress of solitude and had a moment of defiant glee.

The first several days would be filled with visits from family (my daughters, on winter break from college, and my snow-bird parents who were passing through).

Still, I carved out some time each evening just for me, enjoying the sunset in solitude. I had promised myself I would journal while I was here, having already experienced how healing and powerful the practice could be.

As the sun sank down, I began to write:

Day 1 — Here

Arrived just before sunset, after two days in the car. Serene, peaceful … and so many colors in the sky. It will be good here.

I wrote self-consciously at first, monitoring my thoughts to please a nonexistent audience, much the way I’d judged everything I did in my life, with a critical eye and a harsh judgmental tone. Those inner voices can be a constant to so many of us, as Tara Brach explains in her book on radical acceptance.

“Each day we listen to inner voices that keep our life small,” Brach writes. “The way out of our cage begins with accepting absolutely everything about ourselves and our lives.” (Brach, 2003)

To me, this meant completely accepting my “failed” marriage, my single status, the emotional toll it had taken on our two daughters, and learning to do so without judgment or regret. Talk about a tall order.

The days took on their own kind of rhythm, crashing and receding like the waves outside the cottage door. In that rhythm, I found time for deep introspection every morning while I meditated or walked on the beach and calm reflection in the evenings as the sun sizzled out in the waves.

While I could feel a growing peace, it came at the price of fresh anxieties and fears as my old demons fought to hang on:

Day 7

Had the familiar welling up of an anxiety attack today, and hated every moment of it. Triggered by … the change of plans? The gray day? Whatever the cause, it seems the closer I get to breaking free of my past patterns of fear and anxiety, the more I recognize the symptoms when they start. I will not go back to living this way … and maybe my ego knows this and is doing all it can to keep its hold.

I went through a painful week or so where I couldn’t go deep, could barely muster up a handful of sentences at the end of each day, afraid of the thoughts that were forcing their way to the surface. I spent my time frying oysters and baking blueberry pies, anything to keep my mind off the obvious issue.

Finally a huge truth dawned on me:

Day 15

Fear tried to grab me today, the old anxiety about work, earning my own way in life, future, etc. Took a bit of doing, but I shook it off. There is nothing wrong, there is no one judging me, and everything is fine. Enough already. I can’t believe I used to live this way all the time.

Bella DePaulo, Ph.D. writes that the simple fact of being solo means we are not monitored or judged by our usual suspects. “In this state of unselfconscious being we are free to think, free to listen to our hearts without external interpretation.” (DePaulo, 2011)

Halfway through my time on the beach, I knew this was true. I was surprised to realize one day that my anxiety, that old familiar “friend” I lived with for so many years, was gone, replaced by … nothing. I felt calm, present and at peace:

Day 28 — Halfway to Here

Life is meant to be joyous. Creation sings all around us every day. Yet we have decided to cloak the experience in fear … fear of losing what we have, afraid to try something new because we might lose that too … and so in the process, we lose the only thing it is possible to experience — the moment.

Yet, I knew it still lurked, waiting for a moment of weakness to rear up, but I accepted that, embraced it as part of my past and a possibility for my future. And in accepting it, it somehow lost a significant amount of its power over me.

I threw myself into the next month, facing the tough emotional work and embracing the ever-growing sense of inner peace. One month later, I packed up to head home, peaceful and relaxed, spent yet happy, ready to get back and start writing my next chapter:

Day 56 — As Is

While I might not see the long road ahead, I see the next step in front of me, and I put my foot firmly in front of me again, walking on. Life is roaringly beautiful … and I walk on.

Like Alice, emerging from the rabbit hole, on the drive home I left behind the crazy but self-inflicted characters, ignoring the Queen of Hearts’ decree to chop off my head and throwing her playing cards back in her face. It was time to live my own life, in all its messy, glorious muchness.