Alone or not alone is not the question

Someone sent me a novel this week, and last night, after I finally got the chance to read it, a question came to mind. It’s a question that many of us wrestle with more than we admit, especially at this time of the year.

In spite of the holiday noise, or maybe because of it, winter tends to slow us down, exposes the parts we’ve been outrunning, and opens a door to thoughts we don’t always want to entertain, like longing, loneliness, irritation, nostalgia, hope, and everything in between.

This season, I felt that tension building slowly.

My brother and I have been living together for a couple of months now, something we hadn’t done since we were much younger, long before life pushed us into different directions, different countries and different versions of ourselves.

Living together again as adults was surprisingly familiar and wildly different. Our childhood patterns made a quiet comeback: who gets annoyed first, who gets silent, who stays up late, who needs more space. And then the other patterns emerged – those shaped by years of separate lives, independent routines, private histories, heartbreaks, coping mechanisms, and unspoken expectations.

One night, during one of those honest conversations siblings somehow fall into, he said something like this:

“People who stay together are the ones who can accept each other’s flaws. The best parts are easy. The not-so-great parts are what make or break relationships.”

He didn’t say anything I didn’t already know, but somehow that truth made me stop and think a little harder. That the beauty of relationships, romantic, familial, friendships, even work partnerships, doesn’t live in the best parts. Those are a given. Those are the qualities we fall for.

The real test happens in the friction. In the misunderstandings, the quirks, the habits that don’t match. In the emotional fingerprints each of us carries, shaped by different cultures, childhoods, disappointments, responsibilities, and dreams.

We talk so much about compatibility, chemistry, and communication. But maybe what matters just as much is our capacity to coexist with someone else’s humanity – the unedited parts, the flawed parts, the parts that remind us that no one was created to meet our expectations perfectly.

And maybe “alone or not alone” is not the question.

As the temperatures drop and winter settles in, I see more of this in the people around me – a rise in questions, in introspection, in the quiet ache of disconnection, and in the longing for something more grounded, more real, more aligned.

I see it in myself too.

This is why, in January, I’m launching Finding Your Happy Place, a four-week coaching experience designed for people who want to reconnect with themselves in a season where everything feels a little foggy, or lonely, or uncertain.

Because in the end it’s not about finding an answer to this question. It’s about finding the place inside you that feels steady, spacious, and true so that whatever you choose, connection or solitude, you choose it from strength and certainty, not fear.

If this resonates with you, feel free to message me for details. And wherever you are, alone, not alone, or somewhere in between, I hope this season brings you clarity and a gentler way of being with yourself.