I am a 52 year old twice divorced woman, will be 53 in a couple of months. I currently live alone. I have lived literally alone for over 2 years. Prior to that, for 5 years, I lived with an absolutely wonderful roommate and we became good friends. We are still friends although we do not see each other frequently due to how busy he is. But to explain how good of a friend he is, I trusted him with witnessing my will. Prior to moving in with him, I had lived alone for 7 years. Prior to that, I had been married for the second time. Prior to that, I had lived alone with my son from the first marriage which was extremely brief, and prior to that, I had lived with my FOO.

For a number of years, until recently, I had been a manager and my work days had been spent in constant interaction with other people. A large percentage of those interactions had been on ZOOM. Then, I developed extreme hypersomnia due to bipolar illness and was on disability for several months, trying to find better medications and being very pessimistic about work and future. But I was able to return to work and find better medications. I need more sleep than most people, but not those inordinate amounts of sleep (12 hours, 14 hours!) as when I was disabled. My manager changed my role at work and I am now a senior individual contributor. Sometimes for a whole day I work solo, without meetings. I briefly grieved losing the managerial role but I now much enjoy the solo work. And I still have some meetings, just not non-stop meetings unlike before.

I am a social person and have friends, including long term friends from adolescence and even childhood. They live far away and I regularly keep in touch with them (WhatsApp, Skype etc). I do not have a large social circle locally, but I keep in touch with those few people who are in that social circle (coffee, walks, classical music concerts, inviting them over for meals).

In terms of more superficial and random connections, I am fairly active on Facebook and have "friends" whom I have Facebook-known for years and whom I have not met in real life but who probably are connected to me IRL indirectly through mutual friends. I post my photographs on FB and have quite a few people respond. One of my newest local acquaintances with whom we have gone on walks and to a open air classical music concert wanted to meet me in person after knowing me in local Facebook groups for a number of years. So sometimes it bleeds from FB onto RL. She and I already plan to go to a classical music concert together in May of next year. But more often than not, I go to classical music and other concerts, ballets, operas alone and I am completely fine with it.

I probably should add here and I never feel lonely or bored. I am just not currently familiar with how these two feelings are subjectively experienced. Maybe in the past, but over the past few years, not at all.

Facebook, Skype, WhatsApp add a social element to my alone time. For instance, I may go to the ocean and then send/post pictures and that would feel social to me. But physically I am alone.

I could easily meet people IRL by connecting in local FB groups with people whom I have "FB known" for a long time or based on mutual interests or just to go for a walk, but I do not feel a need to. Maybe I should, because I am getting concerned about something, which is basically the subject of my post and I apologize for writing such a long backstory.

Recently, my adult son and his GF visited me. They stayed overnight at an Airbnb nearby (I do not have a guest room) but spent all the day time in my apartment. We took trips together (San Francisco, the beach, going to restaurants) and took turns cooking for each other at home. We had a wonderful time. He plans to propose and I cannot be happier for him, as I very much like the GF and it is clearly visible that she loves him and wants to make a good impression on me. This visit was my second time seeing her. I first met her last November.

The thing is, during the visit I had the feeling of being "on" and at some point suggested to them to spend a day in San Francisco by themselves (this was her first time visiting the city, or California for that matter, and it had been her dream since adolescence to come to SF), without me. I stayed home, swept the floors, mopped the floors (while listening to an audiobook), wiped the surfaces, and cooked dinner which they much enjoyed when they returned in the evening.

It was so relaxing to be alone.

Part of the reason I sent them to spend yet another day in the city by themselves was because I wanted to give them privacy and independence. My late mother, unfortunately, was not like that (overbearing, controlling, everything was about her), but I do want to give the young people space. But another part of the reason was that I wanted to relax alone. It was amazing how good mopping the floors felt, and I in general am not a clean freak (learning to clean is my recent accomplishment and some of the credit for that goes to my former roommate, now friend).

They left yesterday. She said that she did not want to leave: she liked being her a lot. I was overjoyed that she said that. But today I spent the day primarily alone, except for a visit to my psychiatrist who is also my therapist. We talked about all of that and he did not see a reason for me to be worried, but I still am.

Am I becoming old? Is this part of growing old? I do not feel old at all but this aspect of growing to enjoy solitude makes me wonder if I am becoming old and set in my ways. I used to be very flexible, too flexible, but now I need my routines. My doctor believes that it is healthy to have routines and credits me with all the work of building them much later in life after a chaotic and unstructured childhood. I also worked very hard on implementing the Social Rhythms therapy for bipolar on my own (it is an evidence-based therapy for bipolar disorder). Am I now too dependent on routines, habits, regular schedules etc.? For instance, during the two weeks that my son and his GF were here, I skipped my weekly sessions with my doctor and I missed them and looked forward to resuming them, even though I was very happy that the young people were visiting.

I am sitting here now in complete solitude and the only sound in my environment is that of my typing on the computer keyboard, and I am keenly aware of how much this is enjoyable for me. I was not like that in the past. I did not have this need to be alone.

What is going on and should I be worried about this? Is this a byproduct of living by myself for a long time?