The Art of Being Alone

I'm not alone very often these days. But since Wednesday, I have been, as my wife and kids drove to the beach to spend time with my parents. 

I declined the invitation to go down with them. I needed go through detox from nictotine (yet again), and needed to be alone to do it in order to keep damages to a minimum. Since I had been in the house all day for the past two days trying to work while drying out, I decided to go have a drink (alone), then dinner (alone), and then spent the rest of my Friday night praying (alone), and later perusing Target and Dollar Tree (alone) looking for a certain kind of dish basin. 

You see, our dishwasher wasn't working correctly, and I was tired of trying to diagnose it. So I asked my wife if she'd be ok just not using it, as I'm growing weary of repairing and replacing appliances, and she obliged. "It will be just like on vacation," I said. There is a part of me that wants to be more intentional about these things, though--slow down my life so I can make time to do dishes by hand as an activity, not a nusiance or inconvenience, but work it in as a natural part of our family routine. Seemed like serendipitious timing. We'll see how it works out. 

I literally had nothing to do this evening. A friend tried to get together but it didn't work out and I was unwilling to make the drive. And so my time was suddenly my own, and I didn't do much with it-didn't waste it, but didnt optimize it--I was just existing, on a Friday night, in a Target, shopping for a certain kind of dish basin.

This used to be my life, before marriage. I would go to the weekend movies at the Ritz at the Bourse alone. I would take the bus from my apartment and drink whiskey on the ride down Ridge Avenue to Center City to be alone in company at parties. Sometimes I would throw my bike on the rack, and later bobbing and weaving after midnight, make my way back by moonlight up Kelly Drive along the Schuykill. When I got back, I would put on some music and make some tea, and sit on the couch, or smoke on the porch.

You think of things to do with your time. There were times when the loneliness was acute, but most of the time it was just life--existing, functioning, trying to make do with our individual burdens that are unique to our state in life. I was generally okay being alone most of the time, but sometimes it was too hard, too heavy, not having anyone to keep me in check. I longed for a partner, that when my motorcycle broke down I had someone to call, that I had someone to share my fears with, wrap my arms around, and vice versa. 

My family will be back tomorrow. I spent the evening after getting home arranging our new dishwashing-by-hand-system: a basin with clean water and hydogiene peroxide for rinse, another in the sink for soaking, a nice drying rack arrangement. I sewed some linen hand towels, drank some iced tea, listened to John Coltrane's A Love Supreme. 

I'm afraid to sit on the patio out back--I'm not in the clear yet, need at least 24 more hours til all the drug is out of my system and then maybe I will be nice, will be affable and join good-natured company again. Until then, I'm sequestering for the good of everyone. I punched the gas by the minimart on my way home and let out a searing Ffffffffff-!!!------ but I didn't stop. I kept driving and made the best of my patheticly nice, indifferent Friday evening.