Eureka

This is why I spend my days off at home. This is why I turn down plans. This is why I stay in my apartment instead of flying off to Los Angeles or New York when work is done. I am in the zone, and it is so healing.

I have been alone for a day and a half and I know that no-one will walk in my house anytime soon. I feel completely calm, not in a temporary way, but solidly calm, in a way that I feel safe will stay with me. I am sure there is a clinical name for this, like alpha brain waves or something, but I really love it, and miss it terribly.

Years ago, I lived alone and would stay at home and not call anyone for days. A few years later I lived alone for a month and got too lonely but back in the old days I was in heaven when I got to be home, unbothered for days at a time.

Would I go back to that lifestyle again? No. I was lonely then too. I didn't realize it at the time because I think the lonliness was a fair trade off for the relief from the social phobia. Back then I had a difficult time just going to Walgreens, I felt so much like every person around me was staring at me and evaluating me, as if I had a spotlight on me. I also think that lonliness was so much a part of my life since the death of my mother, that I didn't notice it. (I onliy recently have been aware that I do feel lonliness, I never realized you can both crave intimacy and want more time alone)

Would I like to have a week alone in my house every year? Hell yeah! This is what pleases me so much about having a flight crew member for a roommate, I get to have a few days a week where I can interact with my environment without having to feel concern for anyone else's space, but also, a few days a week have someone else there, so I am not inside my own head the whole time I am at home.

I spent the whole day working on the house. I was able to carry everything from my closet of a room to the other bedroom and not have to hurry or watch the time for when Emma would be home from work. I was in a cycle of developing a mess, which seemed huge in such a small space, and after awhile it would feel good to pull everything out, organize it, and then put it all back. Problem is, I never had enough time to get it organized enough that I wouldn't have to pull it all out to clean it,
so the cycle would repeat.

I live alone for 3/4 of a month, what a priveledge. I feel like I am the good parts of moving: by pulling out everything I get a clean slate, a "new" environment, but none of the time constraints of moving, and the packing and unpacking isnt there to take up my energy. Lucky lucky me.

mood: in "the zone," calm, tired, fortunate