….it started many many years ago. My daughter would go spend holidays with her dad and his family. She was so little and should be with her family on these wonderful occasions. I got used to being alone by myself. If you can survive holidays by yourself you can survive anything. People would invite me to join them. I went a few times but its not the same borrowing someone else's family.
Over the years I would look forward to long weekends in the same PJ's for days. I would make a turkey and relish the alone time.
Over the years I slowly started to become a bit of a hermit. I think it started after my second divorce, I lived on the 3rd floor of an apartment building and had to buzz visitors in. I would never buzz them in. I pretended I wasn't home. I remember friends calling to say they were stopping over and I would get irked, they were infringing on my alone time.
I would move out to the sticks. I lived way out in the boonies. I relished my country homes and the long drives to work and no visitors. Then I got my dream job working from home. I have worked from home ever since. And slowly I withdrew more and more from the world.
Oh I would venture out, but on my terms. On my whims.
Now its been a way of life. Only letting a few friends in my inner circle.
I Yabba dabba doooooo on Fridays and am so delighted with the prospect of a whole weekend ahead of me. I now purposely do not make plans. I have a sticky note in big letters that says No Plans = No Cancel.
Now its the Internet stopping over uninvited. For years I was hooked on Facebook. I still get sucked in sometimes. I do use social media to research and keep up with things I am interested in. I listen to Podcasts all day while I work. I would sometimes rent cabins in Allegany just because there was no Internet or cell service. Now on the weekends I turn off all the tech. I read in silence. Or journal in silence looking outside at my nature. During the summer I created the no tech on the porch or sunroom rules.
This weekend is a weekend of pure nothing. I wander from my kitchen table and window onto the back yard to my sit spot in the love seat in front of the fire place with candles lit inside. I look out onto my neighborhood or read one of my many books. In the summer its the front porch or the sun room. I literally could sit and just watch the clouds drift by.
Oh I am not ashamed to admit I am a binge TV watcher as well. I have my collection of TV series DVDs and my latest obsession I have found full episodes of all my Soap Operas on YouTube. I am currently on All My Children 2004. I started at 1980. I love to cook and I cook up a storm. Then to Instagram my food. I am obsessed with cooking shows too. Tons of them. Oh how I love my little world here. I have my 2 dogs to keep me company. They make me laugh. They enable me to shut out the world but not feel alone. The only time I feel alone is when I'm on my 10th beer. I am so glad I never have to feel alone like that again.
I have visions of getting in my truck and traveling for 3 weeks to Vancouver and California when I retire in a few years. But once I get that travel urge out of my system, I will relish my alone time in my most fabulous home.
That is all in the future. For now I have a lot of nothing to do...……..
