Alone
won’t let you wear your fancy bracelet, the kind that has a latch and needs
three hands to get it onto your wrist.
Alone
says no to that becoming dress, the one with the tight bodice that won’t give
so you can scootch it up in back, and you can zip it all the way to the top.
Alone
thinks it’s a bad idea to bake your favorite cake recipe or that meatloaf you
love to make with real mashed potatoes and the green bean casserole - unless
you want to eat it all week long or freeze the remainder into a dozen plastic
lunch containers.
Alone
won’t listen to your joke or your story, and it gives useless advice on your
latest wacky idea.
Alone
doesn’t care if you steal the covers, hide the remote, or lie about the
bathroom scales.
Alone
gladly gives up the second seat at the theatre or the symphony so you can use
it for your purse and coat.
Alone
lets you be the hero of your life’s story, wear the pants, be the boss of you. It
gladly lets you swat at the spider, squash the water bug, and shoo the
salamander, but then refuses to help dispose of their dead bodies afterwards.
Alone
ignores you as you struggle with that clumsy box Fed Ex just left on your front
step. It looks the other way as you drag
the trash bin to the curb and just sits, like a lump, in the front seat of the
car while you figure out how to jump start the dead battery.
Alone
doesn’t take up much room at the restaurant at your table for one. It lets you
eat all the tortilla chips and won’t steal your guacamole.
Alone
doesn’t care that you watch too many musicals and chick flicks, and doesn’t eat
your dark chocolate candy or your Blue Bell then hide the empties at the bottom
of the trash can.
Alone
won’t get you a bandage, warm you a bowl of chicken soup, or check on those
noises coming from the kitchen in the middle of the night.
Alone
doesn’t care about your feelings but that is okay. You can live alone. It’s when Alone sometimes brings home an
unwanted guest – Loneliness - most often it is in the middle of the night or on
a weekend, and suddenly being alone looks different.
Loneliness
amplifies everything, and everything you see loses its color or its fun or its
warmth. Problems become insurmountable.
You
hate bracelets and hard-to-zip dresses.
You want to haggle with someone over the covers or the remote or what
movies to watch at the cinema. You wish
someone was stealing your chocolate
or the guacamole off your Number One Mexican Special. You want someone (besides your pillows or the
cats) who talks and listens, laughs and argues, and takes turns with you taking
out the trash. Best of all, you want
someone – another human being – who cares enough about you to get you a Band
Aid, eat your cooking, and get up in the middle of the night to check for
zombies.
Rachel, today is my wedding anniversary. I had vowed to live alone because every man I had met, other than my sons father, was a loser. I can't believe you chose today to describe my life before Darrell. This little story is wonderful! Thank you my friend for bringing home what Alone is really like. Sometimes even when there is two, one is still "alone".
ReplyDeleteI lived a very lonely life married to my children's father. I was married and he wasn't. I would be in the same room with him and my heart would cry out in loneliness. When HoneyBunch came along I enjoyed living alone, now I know that should he precede me in death, I still will never again be lonely. He will always fill my heart.
ReplyDeleteLovely piece!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Liz. Big praise coming from you.
ReplyDelete