The Company I Keep

What do you do when you are alone?

When it’s just you?

Even with children, or while in a relationship or married, we all have those things we do when no one is around.

Like spending an entire Saturday in bed, eating an entire pound of peanut M&M’s while watching episode after episode of ‘Friends’ and ‘Big Bang Theory’.

Or plucking our eyebrows and then continuing to pluck at hairs that aren’t even there because we got lost in thought over the pending conversation when we are asked where all the M&M’s went.

Or turning on (and turning up) some good old-school R&B music, pulling out the cleaning supplies and dancing around the kitchen, singing into utensils as we do the dishes.

Or pulling out the shoe boxes filled with letters, mementos, and photos that hide in the back of our closets, or under our beds, reliving the past for a moment or two.

For me, though few and far between, there are days when I will get home from work, shed my shoes, pour a glass of wine, and take a seat on the couch.

Ahhh… Silence… In the stillness, I allow my mind to go blank. Memories are nowhere to be found. Errands and to-do lists fade into the background. No favorite TV show to distract me. The glass remains empty. Dinner uneaten. The house as it was. Messages unread. Calls unanswered. Posts unnoticed. Time passing.

There have been several times that I will catch myself after awhile and look at the clock on the living room wall, only to find that the entire evening has passed and I have no idea where it went. I have just… been.

It’s one of my ‘secret single behaviors’.

Typically, most of my alone time I enjoy being productive and getting things done, always wanting everything in life to be perfect (or as close as I can get it). Yet, other times… I just need to BE.

Because I have learned that just ‘being’ does more for my health and wellness than any gym, or good house keeping, or preparation for the week can.

So when I don’t reply to your text, or accept your request to dinner, or like your post, or answer your call, know that it may be because I am perfectly content on a perfectly comfortable couch, having perfectly plucked eyebrows, in a perfectly clean house, perfectly ready for tomorrow… and I find myself to be the perfect companion to a perfect evening, perfectly alone.