Lonely

Desert Botanical Gardens, Phoenix AZ
Photo Credit: Doree Weller

Recently, I got the opportunity to spend a few days alone (my husband was out of town on a business trip), and my parents invited me over so I wouldn’t get lonely.

Lonely?  Who gets lonely?

I sometimes forget that others might spend a few days alone and get lonely.  I’m not wired that way.  The first thing I think when I hear that I get to be alone is “YAY!”

Don’t get me wrong.  I love my family and my husband and friends.  But I also love the quiet peace of being alone, and knowing that I get to be alone.  I don’t have to share my air with anyone (except animals, and they don’t count in my mind).  Those of you who aren’t introverts will probably read this and think “Share her air?  Is she crazy??”  It’s hard to explain to someone who isn’t an introvert that when you’re around others all the time, sometimes it’s nice to be so completely alone that you don’t even have to hear someone else breathe.

I’m never really alone.  I have the voices in my head to keep me company.  Right now, there’s Anne of Green Gables (I just finished re-reading that book) and some of my own characters.  We have conversations when there’s no one else around to think I’m talking to them.

If I were alone for weeks and weeks and weeks, maybe I’d get lonely.  Maybe.  But once in awhile, the quiet alone time is just what I need to recharge.

How do you recharge best?

Maybe Next Year

I was supposed to go to Las Vegas to visit with friends in a few weeks.  I was really excited about it as I only get to see this particular friend once or twice a year, as she lives in Pennsylvania, and I’m now in Arizona.  But then… one of our cats got sick, and after a really expensive trip to the emergency vet’s office, I realized I had to make some hard choices.

I also had planned to go to Alaska this year.  My husband and I have been talking about that trip for a few years, and we never seem to get around to planning it.  “Maybe next year” is the refrain.

For some reason, last weekend, I had a bit of a breakdown, and I realized that I couldn’t tolerate the thought of going someplace urban.  I work in Phoenix, and I’m tired of buildings and blacktop.  I want to see open stretches of natural stuff, be it trees or icebergs.

That’s when I realized that I couldn’t give up going to Alaska this year.  I couldn’t spend one more year putting this off.  I live in a suburban, quasi-rural area, and I have a backyard that’s an oasis.  But I need to get away and go somewhere with fewer people.  I need to recharge, and I just can’t do that at home.

The last time we’d been on a vacation was… November 2005.  We went to the Bahamas, and I lost my voice the day I got there, had to cancel snorkeling and swimming with the dolphins because I had such bad bronchitis (and no medication) that I couldn’t breathe.  We’ve been away on mini-trips for a few days, but this will be the first week that we’ve gone away together in a long time.  I couldn’t cancel it.

So in two weeks, when we were supposed to be in Vegas, we’ll be home, doing projects here, going to see the B-52s in concert, and probably ordering in.

And in a few months, we’ll be going to Alaska.

I’m tired of “maybe next year.”