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.

The Change Will Do Me Good

I have never been a person that was big on change. Instead of embracing it, I tend to dread it. One of my best friends says the way people perceive change depends on their own attitude on it. I honestly had never thought about it before, but she is absolutely right.  Like the leaves that are changing into their festive fall finery before taking the last bow before winter and fluttering to the ground,  I have been forced to adjust to some changes.

All my life my fear of change tends to always work me into a real tizzy. This fall, a major life change has left me reeling. For the first time in 11 years, I am not joined at the hip by one or both of my kids. They have both left the nest for school. Once my youngest gets on the bus , I return to a very quiet, empty, lonely house. Yes, my menagerie of pets are still here, but they quickly find a comfortable spot and fall asleep leaving me very much to my own devices in silence. Silly as it sounds, it took me a couple of days to realize that it was OK if I wanted to play my tunes full blast, or watch that sappy chick flick that my kids snort at without complaint. The first time I actually ventured out of the house without my kids was even more of a shock to the system. Instead of being thrilled with this new found freedom, I find myself sad and depressed.

To make matters even worse, the website that I had put so much blood, sweat, and tears into has been abandoned and left to rot just when it was really beginning to take off. Why? The web host went out of business. Since it was their software program that allowed me to update the site, it seemed only a matter of time before that would no longer be available to me. Before, they kept me busy making money through their in house writing programs creating reviews. While it wasn’t a lot of money, I was getting paid weekly something for my efforts making my little website and all the work I put into it worthwhile. I began writing online for the money…period. It was not something I thought I was capable of doing. 

Over time, my purpose for writing changed. As I realized that writing really didn’t make me a whole lot of money, I began to discover I was writing more for the pleasure. It took me a very long time to get to the place where I developed a soul wrenching need to write, and discovered it to be enjoyable. I was completely amazed to find a whole slew of people that actually wrote and maintained a website for the fun of it. Over time, I joined their ranks. That is why when I was hit with the website crisis, I created a new one at blogger and started over from scratch.

Until further notice, while attempting to ride out the changes that seem to be over running my life at the moment, I will try to keep in mind that the change will do me good. Until next time when I give you another glimpse into the life of a truckers wife.