Lonely or alone? Re-revisited

In the Spring and Early Summer of 2014 I wrote a couple of posts on the subject of the difference between being lonely or alone.
Tonight on a cold and windy Winter Friday evening I thought I would say a few more words on the subject. Looking back at what I wrote it seems that I wasn't in a very good place mentally. I had fallen into, or perhaps back into would be more accurate expression, the depression which has, whether I realised it or not, (black) dogged me for much of my life .
Sitting here though I have come to the conclusion that I'm not lonely, I have Thomas Kitty for a start and there are many people I know think of me and are concerned about my welfare. It doesn't matter that I rarely speak to or see them, it's the fact that I know they are there that makes me realise that I'm not lonely. I say not because it's true, I am comfortable in my solitude and in fact actively seek it out at times. I have interests which occupy my mind such as boring the readers of this blog, and oddly there are some; I can also lose myself in a book which to me is one of the great ways of countering loneliness. A good book can carry me away to places I'm unlikely to ever visit and catch me up in the lives of people who I will never meet, mainly because most of them are fictional but never mind, in a good book they become real and part of my life.
There are people who are lonely and it is an awful state to be in especially as one gets older and I can empathise because in the past I have allowed myself to consider myself lonely, what I'm talking about are my own feelings now which are the only ones I can feel obviously.
Anyway, before I tie myself up in existential knots here I'll stop rambling and get to the point. I consider myself to be extraordinarily lucky to be able to cope with being alone and not to feel lonely. I have travelled to the ends of the Earth; well, Australia and the USA, alone and have never felt lonely. Interacting with new people or just watching the world go by keeps loneliness at bay. I'm as happy sitting in a cafe drinking coffee (really a bar drinking beer but I thought it sounded more cosmopolitan to be in a cafe) people-watching as I am amongst a crowd. I sometimes think that I must be the most gregarious loner I know.
So there you have it, all the times I've bubbled on about being lonely, well those days are gone. I'm comfortable in my skin and happy to be able to make my own entertainment, be it in the club with friends, alone with a book or interacting with folks on social media.
I hope I've explained what I'm trying to get across, which is that I've finally worked out that I'm never lonely, just sometimes I happen to be alone.
Until my next ramblings or if you're really lucky, poem I say Peace and Love. ttfn x