Turning the corner

There is a calm in being alone.  I know, it may seem illogical that I would be saying that but there is.  The trick is in finding it, that place of calmness.

Like so much in life, I think the key to happiness is where you place your attention.  Choosing where you focus is not as easy as it sounds as it turns out.  It can be so easy to be distracted then consumed then obsessed by the negative, but what does that get you?  

I've known lots of people who are "glass half empty" folks, we all have.  They are the ones who are "just ok" on perfect spring days.  They are the ones who walk past, in a state of total self-consumed oblivion, the amazing musician that blesses a subway with their gift.  They are the ones who brood, day after day, week after week, year after year, about those that "done them wrong."

So as I continue to spend time alone, I am focusing on the gift of solitude. Instead of focusing one more minute on anyone from my past who chose me second, who placed me low on this list of priorities we all have, I am focusing on those who love me.  On those who choose me and value me as much as I choose and value them.  I choose to be thankful and aware of the good in my life and take this time to appreciate it.  And the gift that comes with that is the warmth that surrounds me.

It feels like a corner has been turned.

Weirdness

Weird thing, being alone.  It's a blessing and a curse.  It's a split personality.  It's yin & yang.  Or something like that.

I spent the first 41 years of my life, almost entirely without exception, living with others.  As few as one, as many as four (and that's if you don't count my four legged house-mates).  Building bonds, feeling love, making mistakes.  The lion's share of my life shared minute by minute with those I love or have loved around me.

Now that I am in my seventh year living alone, although I have been sharing a large part of my life until recently with someone else, I am now at night in the quiet of my home alone again.  My children are grown and happy and independent and successful, each in their own perfect way.  A great gift, this I know.  But I am here surrounded now instead by my choices and mandates that have given me the great joys and consuming lows which made my life.

Weird thing is, right now I can't imagine a day when I would share this physical space with someone else.  Maybe it's that I'm too self-indulgent in my routines.  Maybe it's that I'm a decorating dictator.  Maybe it's that I'm just not ready.  Plain and simple.

Whatever the equation is that created that solution, I find it weird.  To be sometimes lonely yet simultaneously reluctant to accepting the resolution.   Weird.

But that's life I guess.