Sunday, June 28

I am OK alone

Shannon and the girls took advantage of summer vacation and cheap airplane tickets and jetted off to SLC for a week.  That leaves me home alone for 6 days, which has been interesting.  Shannon and Julia left me home alone years ago when Shannon was sick and pregnant with Ella, and that was the last time that we spent more than 2 nights apart.  Even the times where we have been apart for a day or two, I've been the one gone on a business trip, and there's at least been the novelty of being somewhere different for a day or two.  (Even if that different place happens to be Cleveland, which for some reason is where half of my business trips end up being.) So, I've learned a few things being alone for a week.

First off, I am OK alone. Despite what everyone else thinks, I am more than capable of feeding myself and getting myself up on time.  (It helps that the sun comes up at about 5:30 here in the summer.)  But, living alone isn't all fun and games.

Living alone is lonely. I know, who'd have thought? Maybe it's because I'm not particularly good at living on my own, but there's nothing to do.  I turn on music when I get home from work, and I talk to myself, just to have some noise in the house. TV isn't as fun by yourself. Dinner isn't any fun by yourself. This feeds right into my next point:

Living alone is boring. Between coming home from work and going to bed, I have about 5 hours of time, and almost nothing to fill them. I've cleaned up the house a fair bit, but it was messy to begin with. Now that it's straightened up, it should stay pretty clean, at least until I decide to have a My Little Pony party. Even when it is time to go to bed, I don't want to read - there's no need to find a way to quietly retreat from the world when you live in silence all the time.

Finally, living alone is pointless. I mean, seriously, if I lived alone, I'd have soooo much free time. What on earth could I do? I like to run, but there's a limit to how much of that I can do a day. I've played some Starcraft with Brett, but at some point even that starts to wear. I can't imagine having enough hobbies to fill my time. I don't know how single people do it. I suppose they have a bunch of single friends and they go off and do fun stuff all the time. I'm sure they find interesting and meaningful things to do with their time - hopefully they're much more productive single people than I am.

To sum up: Living alone - did not like; would not recommend.

Everyone gets home tomorrow night, and I'm sure I'll be wanting some peace and quiet around the house shortly after that. If you find me complaining, remind me that noisy and messy is far better than alone.

3 comments:

Lauren said...

Thoughts of a guy that got married young...

Living the single life for many years, I was so busy that when Nathan initially called to schedule a blind date with me, it took me 5 days to call him back. (Oh, and I'm afraid of making phone calls.) I was so busy single that after getting married, I had a hard time adjusting to not having something planned every night, every weekend, all of the time.

But I wouldn't trade it, either.

Clark said...

Undoubtedly, I'm terrible at living by myself. Most single people seem to be better at it than I am. Presumably, if I actually were single, I'd get better at it.

Suzanne said...

I only lived alone for 2 years before I got married. You get used to it, and it becomes more fun. Shopping at odd hours? Ok! Hogging the [everything]? Ok! Other things that would reflect poorly on me as a member of society were I to list them? Also ok, as no one was there to be bothered by them. It was lonely at times, but I have Facebook on my phone now.