Look Ma, No Hat!

I am up way too late tonight. I am going to regret it early tomorrow morning. But, for now, I am enjoying life. ALONE. I love, love, love being alone. No Myers-Briggs test needed here; I'm 100% introverted.

The trouble is: I'm also a mother of two small children, who evidently love me too much to be out of my sight for more than 10 minutes. My three year old pleas every night for me to lay next to her bed until she is sleeping. When (not if) she wakes during the night, she makes the sojourn down to my bed. Consequently, my private time is at a premium.

I love my husband after the kids conk out, but hanging with him doesn't give me what I need, that being pure solitude.

So, the only way I can get that is if I get up earlier or stay up later than everyone else. I tried the earlier one yesterday. I fell asleep at 7pm, while putting Goose to bed, and so getting up at 6 was easy. But, Goose's radar is too good. She who had been sleeping in until 8am, got up at precisely 6:13. I was angry. I was surprised at how absolutely angry I was. I tried to convince her it was still night - she said "but you are awake, so it is morning." I opened the door and asked her if the sun was up. No answer. Go to bed with Daddy please. She went...and returned within five minutes. My day was destroyed.

Why do I need the alone time? I'm not exactly sure. I find it interesting that at other times I feel too lonely and crave the companionship close friend. I can spend hours on the phone with a sister, for example. I'd like to say that I need the alone time to be productive; to get a project completed or a book read. But the truth is, it doesn't really matter what I do, as long as it doesn't involve interacting with other people.

I'd also like to say that it allows me to gather my thoughts or ponder important issues. Sometimes that is what I do while I'm alone, but it isn't the reason I need the alone time. Sometimes I think about absolutely nothing.

I do know that it helps me recover my sense of self. Having little monkeys hanging from me all day tends to blur the lines of where I end and they begin. Judged by their lack of bathroom privacy etiquette, I think they are confused by that too. Being alone allows me to explore my own feelings and thoughts, or lack thereof, without reference to anyone in my immediate surroundings. That's invaluable.

Being alone is the only way I can really truly be relaxed. I don't know why this is true. I feel it shouldn't be. I, of course, put on pretenses for some people, but not for my family and close friends. Do I? Perhaps I do. In every relationship I wear a hat of some sort: the needy friend in one instance, the giving friend in another, the obedient daughter, the submissive sister, the list goes on. I change a little of who I am depending on who I am interacting with at that moment. It's all true to myself, but presented differently to each person. It is only when I am alone, perhaps, that I am wholly myself.