Finding belonging in the quiet

When term ends, London goes quiet in a way you don’t quite expect.The library finally empties, cafés close early, and even the Tube feels hushed as if the whole city exhales after months of rushing. For a while, it’s a relief. And then, a week later, it isn’t.

There’s a kind of loneliness that arrives not with heartbreak or isolation, but with pause. You’ve spent the term surrounded by noise, be it classmates, group chats, endless to-do lists, and suddenly, it all stops. The absence rings a little too loudly.

The truth is, even when you love your own company, the quiet can still sting. You scroll through photos of friends at Christmas markets or skiing trips and wonder if you’ve done something wrong by just… being still. But stillness isn’t punishment: it’s invitation.

Because loneliness, at its core, isn’t a lack of people. It’s a lack of belonging in the moment. And sometimes the way back to belonging isn’t through more people, but through gentler rhythms.

So here are a few ways to move through it — not to erase the loneliness, but to live with it more kindly.

1. Be a Tourist in Your Own City

London in December is full of small miracles: fairy lights on the Strand, the scent of roasted chestnuts outside Covent Garden, Christmas trees tucked into every square. Go see them, even if you’re alone. There’s something grounding about watching the city carry on, quietly glittering, even when you feel still.

2. Try the Thing You Always Said You’d Try

You know that hobby you’ve kept on a mental shelf; crochet, painting, writing letters (and actually posting them)? This is the moment to reach for it. The winter quiet gives you permission to do something just because it feels good, not because it’s productive.

And there’s a certain joy in making small, tactile things, in shaping something with your hands after months of living in documents and deadlines.

3. Reclaim Everyday Rituals

Cook something that takes longer than it should. Roast a chicken, bake bread, make soup that simmers all day. Go to the pub for a Sunday roast (alone!) and take a book. Sit by the window. Watch the world go by. You never know what happens when you leave your comfort zone; sometimes it’s conversation, sometimes it’s just the quiet relief of realizing you’re okay on your own.

4. Make Gentle Contact

You don’t have to host a dinner or plan a trip to feel connected. Sometimes all it takes is reaching out; a short message, a walk, a FaceTime call that starts awkward and ends in laughter. Connection doesn’t need grandeur. It just needs intention.

If you’re staying on campus, check what’s still open: ResLife, cafés, or societies hosting low-key gatherings. Sometimes company finds you when you least expect it, like in a shared cup of tea or a spontaneous chat with your flatmate in the kitchen.

5. Redefine the Quiet

If your winter looks less like a Hallmark movie and more like pyjamas, soup, and quiet, that’s okay too. There’s a certain kind of peace in being your own company, in learning that solitude isn’t something to escape from, but something to tend to.

Maybe loneliness isn’t something to fix, but something to listen to, a reminder that you exist beyond productivity, beyond deadlines, beyond noise.

When the city finally starts to wake again; when buses fill and classes resume, I hope you’ll find that something in you has softened, steadied. You’ll be more ready for connection because you’ve made peace with your own quiet first.

And that, in its own small way, is a kind of belonging too.