On Being Alone

I have forgotten how to be alone. This weekend Kevin was out of town for work, so it was just me and the dog. I usually like a little “me” time here and there when Kevin is out of the house and I can throw in a chick flick or read a good book and not feel guilty that I am ignoring the love of my life. But 2 days of alone time is a little much for me, so I called in the troops – my sisters and my mom – for a girls’ night on Saturday.

But then I got sick. Girls night was off. And I was alone. And sick. And very whiney about it.

What to do when you are alone and sick? I watched a ton of movies (all three Pirates movies and even a couple of dumb Lifetime movies). Read a book. Slept. Sat on the floor with my dog. I got really sick of being alone. I am really not that good at it for more than a day.

Maybe I was never good at being alone. I went from a big family of eight to a college dorm of 300 to a house of 6 girls to a wee apartment with one man. But I have always been surrounded. Never on my own. Weird. Because I am NOT a people person or extrovert at ALL. Just ask my friends or my husband, one thing I say all of the time is “I hate talking to people.” Then they remind me that I don’t hate talking to people, I hate talking to people I don’t know. Which is true. I find it tedious and uncomfortable which generally makes it unbearable. So I don’t like to be alone. And I don’t enjoy throngs of unknown people. I am an intro-extrovert. Or something like that.

So I am glad that Kevin is coming home today. I am glad that I had to drag my butt out of bed today to go to work so that I could interact with the few co-workers that are in the office this week. I am glad for small doses of alone time but even more glad that most of my time is full of the people I love and whom I throw all of my extrovertedness to.

Hope

Yesterday I left work early to see Twilight with two of my favorite ladies, Aletha and Baa. I was super excited after reading the book to see the movie. Who can resist a little vampire love? And as I was driving and listening to the radio, the dj started talking about new research that suggested that romantic comedies are harmful to women. I have heard this all before… false ideas of love and romance that are impossible in real life. One article I read previously even suggested that romantic comedies are as dangerous to women as porn is to men – Unrealistic view of romance vs. unrealistic view of the female body and sex. Hhhmmmm…

Now, I love me some romantic comedies. And I love vampire love stories. I love any kind of love story. I know that most of them are just that – stories. They are not real and probably could never be real. After all, we live in a broken world that is incapable of pure love . But this will not keep me from watching them. There is power in story. There is hope in watching love conquer all. Joy in watching good trounce evil. Even if the good is the good girl getting the guy and the evil is in the form of misunderstanding.

When it comes down to it, I love story. Because, after all, a well-crafted story is about hope. Yes, the story we read or see today may be unrealistic for the time we live in, but one day our story, the world’s story, will have an end. Love will conquer all, because, after all, God wins, love wins. So in the meantime I am going to keep on watching my romantic comedies and reading the Twilight series and living in the already not here space. I am going to cling to hope in any form I can find.