I stayed in my parents’ home until I completed university. Then I immediately found a job in another town, and, for reasons of economy, shared a house with three noisy colleagues. They were a perennial source of both amusement and irritation, and, for the first time, I consciously entertained the dream of living alone.

What followed was a period of confusion and connection. I threw myself into a lot of activities; my life became a whirl of friendships and relations. It was the least lonely of times, it was the most active, exciting, buoyant, variable and troublesome of times.
It ended with a bang, when I met someone and married and moved to another country, the United States. For her work as well as mine, we moved from country to country for twenty plus years, and saw two children grow to adulthood and leave nest. Our work entailed long periods of separation, and eventually the relationship tapered with an involuntary whimper.