Alone will be something you'll be quite a lot? Dr. Seuss lied.

I spent the hours of 1pm to midnight all by myself yesterday.  A rarity in the finest form, so I feel the need to write it down.  Moments like these must be tracked and logged carefully.  I honestly don't remember the last time this happened.  'Alone' is something that has not played a big role in my vocabulary in...actually, this entire lifetime thus far.  And I'm okay with that.  I know how lucky that makes me.  But I find that I scare myself when it's just me and me. 

The exact instant that the house is cleared of all other beings, 'what to do' shoots at me from every angle.  And every room I walk into, something needs to be done that I never noticed when I was people'd.  People'd = the opposite of alone.  So much to clean and do and see and watch and listen to and...

I decided I should go outside instead because there was way too much to do indoors.  As I exited the front doorway, the heat hit me and I instinctively reversed back into the house and shut the door, but that triggered something that I was supposed to do. The Do Life 5K.  No way was I going to run in the hot, heated, too-hot, blistering heat.  Feeling guilty and in need of a diversion, I hopped onto the treadmill and Did Life for the next three miles. 

After that, I showered the sweat off and stayed in my bedroom, where it was mostly clean and I didn't feel the overwhelming need to clean and cook and wash and organize.  I opened up the book that I've been reading for the past forever and read a good portion of it before falling asleep somewhere between the hours of 7 and 8pm.  And somewhere in that reading, Kenny called and I told him how I was holed up in the bedroom because so many things were calling to me to fix them and clean them and do everything at once so I couldn't go "out there", as if it were a battle field.  He thought it was funny.  I thought it was terrifying.  Seriously, I can't be alone for a few hours?  How do I plan to die?  You have to do that alone, you know. 

My conclusion is that I'm just not old enough to be left alone yet.  There have always been parents and siblings and  friends and kids and other family around at all hours of all days.  They have always been there to bounce ideas off of my thoughts and thoughts off of my ideas.  Without them there, all of these thoughts and ideas just stagger in the air and taunt me.  I cannot amuse myself like other people can.  How is it that I'm an introvert, yet I thrive on people?  It's because my people are not dull.  One of my friends or family members give off enough livelihood to count for at least three regular people and I'm not making that up.  So, I don't need an entire group of people.  Two of my friends is like having a party.  Get six of them together and there is so much going on that I sometimes feel the need to videotape it just so I can sort it out later, when I'm less alone.

Unless I can have another brain implanted into an enlargened head (or two more brains would be even better) to keep myself company, it looks as if I still need an amandasitter.  Lucky for me, it's Independence Day, also known as my Mama's birthday.  This means I get the goodness and hilarity of a great big portion of my family all at once and for many hours.  Just what I need after yesterday's reality check.

A snapshot of some of my people.