Solitude -BFF 168

       Everyone everywhere needs a daily dose of solitude to reclaim their sanity.  Sometimes it helps to step back and just breathe.   I was being conditioned to enjoy solitude from as far back as I can remember.  I didn’t always enjoy it and at times dreaded time alone, felt tortured, and isolated.  Somewhere along the way I realized I needed to learn to enjoy my own company, then I got to the point I preferred it.  
    
  

        Because there was a 7 year age gap between me and my sister, I learned early that as far as playmates went, I didn’t have any.  She certainly wanted absolutely nothing to do with the likes of me.  I had to learn, and learn quick how to amuse myself and be comfortable playing alone.  I would have given anything to meld perfectly with a group of friends that accepted me and wanted me around.  Even if I felt included in early grades by the time puberty hit, I was abandoned by my peers and forced to wander the outskirts of the social clicks. 

        My feelings were shattered by the rejection.  I always felt my mom was in denial about my level of popularity among my peers.  Just because everyone I passed said hello at school functions, it still didn’t mean they included me.  They were friendly, and I was always the outsider, although in hindsight after being hurt time and again I believe I learned to hold everyone at arms length.  After a while I found I loved to read and far preferred my books to the ridicule I found outside their pages.  It certainly was more fun than trying to figure out why I wasn’t accepted or what was wrong with me.

        Up until the time of my mom’s death, I had her as a faithful companion.  We had so much fun and were like two peas in a pod.  When she died I was forced into a solitude like I never had known before.  I went to work and came home to a deathly silent house.  I began to watch videos and play piano to break up the monotony.  I would do anything in those dark days following her death to break the silence.   I rushed out to the bar scene, made friends that were here today and gone tomorrow, and when my Dad came home slowly became dependent on his company.  I realized how much I enjoyed my Dad’s company and how funny he truly was.  By the time he died, I had a daughter and a husband who thought the world of me.

         I devoted all my time and energy into my kids.  I became the epitome of the stay at home mommy.  Last fall, my son left me for kindergarten.  I came back into the house and noticed the house was silent, felt empty, and I was utterly alone again.  By the time this hit, I had learned to enjoy the solitude.  I reveled in the quiet.  I busied myself with my writing, buried myself in books as I always had, and got more housework done than ever before.  After a week it dawned on me that no one else was in the house save me and my menagerie of pets.  If I wanted to play music full blast, who would care?  If I wanted to wear pajamas all day, who cared?  As long as I was dressed and pressed before my little darlings arrived from school it was all good.  I discovered what it was like to go to the store without a couple of kids attached at the hip.  I discovered freedom, and I discovered I liked it!  I liked the silence broken only by the soft hum of the dryer.

             I use this time to reconnect with myself.  I have realized that being alone is very much apart of who I am as a person.  Why else would I have married a man who chose a profession that has him gone all but 4-6 days a month?    It isn’t a life for everyone, but very much a life for me.  I enjoy spending time with my husband and kids, but love my solitude and alone time as well.  I keep to myself, and always have.   After 43 years on this planet, I finally have decided that my love of solitude is OK.  It is in these moments when I hear G0d most clearly.  When it comes right down to it, I am never totally alone because HE is always with me until next time when I give you another glimpse into the life of a trucker’s wife.