When I started living alone, in my current context, I remember thinking, “Now I can relax!”. Solitude, at first, can seem like an escape. “Peace is to be alone”, at least for some people. Freedom to move and be as you desire without outside obligations.

Yet what I have discovered is the opposite. Solitude is conflict. There is nothing here to distract me from me. My memories are what I bring into the cell. And, for me, these memories often mean pain and hurt. There is nothing to distract, nothing to darken the memories, nothing to ease the pain.

What do I do to forget? Do I want to forget or is my purgatory these memories? I have found only one prayer, “Lord Jesus, have mercy on me”. And to forget? Remember Jesus on the cross! Enter into the mystery of the Incarnation by answering (or attempting to) the question, “Do you turn to Jesus?”.

Maybe in this, I am like everyone else?