Loneliness and Camping

Next week is Loneliness Awareness Week so I have been thinking about and asking… stick with me… could camping alone help certain kinds of loneliness?

I am an only child. I went to boarding school. I have travelled a lot, alone. Lived a lot, alone. Always trying to prove I don’t need anyone. So goes my cliché…If there is any yearning ache I have never really admitted to, never wanted to utter, never wanted to have exposed: It’s Loneliness.

Most people have experienced loneliness at some point, for all sorts of reasons. I never felt more lonely than standing in a busy A&E department at the height of COVID-19.

Not only is loneliness bloody awful, it also makes us feel shame. Shame, on top of feeling alone, failed and vulnerable drags away our self-worth, leaving us with feelings of empty companionless sadness with a generous smear of self-blame to sit with. On our own.

There is loneliness where it’s tough to find companionship with yourself. If you beat yourself up and are self-critical, of course you don’t want to be alone with that person, they make you feel like hell.

There is another loneliness, where you are surrounded by people yet feel strangely other, with no connection, in that time you’ve not found one who’s quite the mucker you are.

It sounds counterintuitive, I know, but I’m just about to say if you’re feeling lonely then perhaps head out and camp. On your own.

We all have a companion in ourselves if we give them space to emerge. Camping can be simple as you would like it to be. And its rewards are innumerable. It offers structure, occupation, fun and a tiny reset of that state of mind that feels so lost.

Find a place.

Find a tent, mat, sleeping bag, torch, cup and cooker.

Setting up a camp is a purist form self-care.

Whilst time whiles painfully when you feel lonely, it flashes by when you are occupied. When you fiddle about with a guy rope or try to figure out the correct lashing to a tree, the moments glide. In those hours you are concentrating and making your nest.

You’ll notice when you take yourself into the wild you’re never alone. (Not in a sinister way), but you’ll notice you aren’t ever left, or ignored.

You’re amongst it, accepted into nature’s company: A shiny beetle that you’ll pick gently from a log you’re about to burn. A soft drop of ‘is that rain?’ landing on the back of your hand. A brown bird beadily surveying your set up.

Camping out gives you huge confidence. When a fire goes woomph at your command! When you pee without getting your ass stinging nettled. When. You. cook. Your. Own. Food. On. A. fire. That. YOU built.

Whittle something, mosey, read, write, stare into the middle distance.

The wild clock changes around you, nature telling you it’s time to crawl into your snuggery: cooler air, some crows’ roosting squabble, flaps of canvas, the light folding away.

Being alone is not the same as being lonely.

Of course it’s nerve racking, twig snaps in the night take on all kinds of colourful character. But do have a go! Spend a night camping alone, caring for yourself, eating what you want and letting yourself wonder. It’s impossible not to feel an affection for yourself when you’ve just done that!