Dear LPG,  

I am one of the many people who live alone and I want to stress that I am quite happy without a housemate for the most part. This might be because I still can get out every day and only really find myself spending the occasional entire day there for one of three reasons now.  

These are the days when the house, my clothes or I need to rejuvenate in some way and then I have so much to do that there is no time to get too lonely or depressed.  I have also found that I can do so many of those in house tasks with a friend on the other end of a video call when at home so, as long as I look decent enough to be seen when doing my work there, multitasking means staying in touch for me.  

Perhaps I am a pensioner who is young enough to still see those home alone days as somewhat of a rarity in the same way that I did when I was in full time work.  I am always out and about and perhaps continue to be one of the retired people who are far too busy to be found at home very often.  The truth is that I don’t really spend that much time at home anyway.   For the most part I am only there during the evenings and on those days when we all have to take time out to spruce the place up a bit.  I do find chores a bit of an inconvenience and my wish to get it over and done with dictates that I do just that.  When I take a critical look and see the need for improvement on opening my front door, I just want to get the job done and get on with the rest of my life so I have little time to get depressed about it.   

I have lived alone for the past seven years now and it all came about just as I retired.  I have to say at the time I was really worried about the prospect but as long as you stay in touch with your friends, family and the other people around you, it can be a part of a liberating lifestyle.   I suppose that I am at a life-stage where not having any housemates is a choice and the sight of my home after a day of entertaining my grandchildren (even if their parents come as part of that package) reminds me of the alternatives.   

Having lived in a house with a family where I was the one left in charge of keeping it tidy while each of the other members nearly always swept in and out of the house at different times, unintentionally leaving an aftermath of domestic chaos as they went,  I find living alone a refreshing contrast at the moment.   

I now understand what people say when they mention the advantages of knowing where to find the remote and being able to do what you want to when you want to without worrying about who you are going to inconvenience.   While I suspect that my love of my present lifestyle will not be permanent, there is something very special about coming home and knowing that everything will be just as I left it.   

I think that most people see their homes in one of three ways.  If you live alone it can be the place where you feel somewhat trapped, either physically, emotionally or psychologically, it can also be that safe haven where you can shut yourself away from the rest of the world for a while when you feel the need to escape it, or the place where you eat sleep and prepare yourself to meet everything beyond the front door.    

I mention all this because I think that the perceived picture of all those who live alone is that we are all somewhat depressed and I believe that, while there will always be the times in our lives that present challenges once we get to retirement age, many of us have tried sharing everything we live with varying levels of positivity (and otherwise).  If you are a reader who finds living alone hard, think back to when your home was not completely yours and you might find that a bit of alone time in your living space is not a bad thing, although we all know that circumstances change…  

Embrace it while you can and while you are still young enough to appreciate the advantages… 

AH, Hither Green.