Scene is set; now for introductions.

Okay, so now I've set the scene a little bit, I think I'll just go into what I want this blog to be, and a little bit about my experiences with the subject matter from there. I'll preface all of this by saying that I'm going to do my damndest to make the scope of this blog bigger than just me and my experience. I want to try to impart some of the advice I find helpful, and I'll certainly be present in some of these posts, but I also want to engage with the subject matter and other people. Hopefully this isn't going to end up just being all about me. With that in mind:

The blog: I've given this blog the tagline 'a community for loners' and for the moment, that's sort of what I'd like to become here. I'm not expecting anyone to change who they are or anything, but I would like to build up a bit of a hub for people who are feeling like they don't fit in and are perhaps a bit lonely to come and get constructive advice and support. I know that through my own journey I could have used some - more on that in a moment.

Primarily, I am going to be using this blog as a bit of a creative space and a place to stash useful advice from others, as well as a log of my experiences pertaining to isolation, introversion, solitude, self sufficiency, and other situations of that ilk. I'll say for the record that I'm NOT going to be wasting time miserating on the condition of being alone - though depression has been a feature of my journey (which is going to be touched on), I'm satisfied with where I am at the moment.

By it's nature though, solitude can be a hard situation to navigate, so hopefully there's something here to offer to those who need it. I'm hoping that's painted a clear enough picture of what I want to attempt here. It's a bit of a hard ask, but it's something I've been doing a lot of thinking on, so hopefully it comes off. If not, at least I'll be sorting myself out.

Me: My bio in the sidebar of this page should tell you enough to get a pretty good picture of who I am, but in relation to my experience with isolation, I've had a pretty long run at it. I have lived independently of my parents since I was 15, and have only had relatively intermittent contact with them and the other two members of my family since then. I lived in rural and minor metropolitan settings and recently relocated to the capital city of the state to pursue study. I now find that though people are in close proximity, personality and monetary restrictions mean I limit much of my contact with other people (let's not oversell it; I still have a few friends).

Since leaving school I have had a couple of relationships that ended due to various reasons, my capacity for internalizing problems and emotions being one of those. My longest stretch being single lasted for just over 5 years. The rural setting, lack of social support, and a couple of bad relationships have culminated in my looking at this particular period of my life as a healing experience; this is part of why I decided to start this blog. At the moment I live with one other person, next doors' cat is my main company, and I'm sitting on a verandah in the middle of the night with no lights on, writing this.

I'll try to update this as often as I can write something worthy of being read. At this point, I'll say that's going to be weekly.