Alone Time

More than you ever wanted to know about me: I get my best ideas generally while grooming, cooking, or walking with Titan. And all this time I thought: Well, obviously it's because I have something to do with my hands, and that frees my brain up to think. Makes sense, right? Yeah, right! It's bullshit! My brain doesn't need to be freed to think!

(Um, I'm not really sure what I just wrote, but you get the idea, right? I'll spell it out for you: IT'S NOT ABOUT THE HANDS.)

No-Segue-at-All-Newsflash: I'm an only child.

The only child of Older Parents. (I mean, not OLD, but ol-DER than maybe...uh...whoops. There goes my inheritance. Hi, Mom and Dad!)

I did not have a lot of what is now called "socialization" when I was growing up. My parents tried their best, bless them. I had music lessons, which I excelled at, and sports, at which I excelled rather less. (Not only was I bad, but I didn't know how bad I was. I thought outfield was where they put all their best players! What?)

It was just my luck that music is a solitary activity, where Sports is definitely...not. If you suck at music, no one knows except your parents, your teacher, and the few other parents unfortunate enough to be at the recital. But if you suck at sports, on the other hand, no one knows except the twenty-three other girls on your team, their siblings, their parents, grandparents, your parents, the checker at the corner store, etc.

And I, as I already stated, sucked at sports. I wasn't in bad shape, but I wasn't built for fast running even then, and my hand-eye coordination was even worse. So in my only group activities, I wasn't exactly an asset to "the group"--even when I wasn't hitting my coaches' hands with the bat (true story!)--and therefore I didn't have a lot of what are now called "friends". (Let me just say that I taught myself to read at three.) And I took with me into adulthood the insecurity that no one really liked me and was just smiling at me because their parents made them--and I'm probably not alone in this, but it seems to be compounded in my case by a lot of alone time as a child. A LOT of a alone time. (See Music Lessons, above, and Not Good at Sports, also above, also, see, Speed Reader at Age Three.)

Yes. I was a late bloomer. (May the LT never find pictures of me before, oh, 17.)

(This is all relevant, I promise.)

The POINT is that I eventually, well, Bloomed. In a Big Way. So in spite of--or maybe because of--the fact that my personality is little more than an open, raw, gaping need for attention, I have been able to surround myself with people, clearly hoping in some small way to erase the "scars" from childhood. Community theater, high school theater, youth symphony, sorority in college, various committees, bring it on! I'm not the natural volunteer that my mother is, and I don't like authority, but dammit if I'm not a joiner of clubs in spite of all that! There was even a period in my life where I would take roommates off the internet--anyone, really--(hi, all of you! I swear you were special!) instead of living alone, because I COULD NOT STAND TO BE ALONE FOR EVEN ONE SECOND, OH MY GOD I MIGHT WITHER AWAY AND DIE, I NEED AN AUDIENCE 24-7.

Since this time period, though, I've grown up a little. (Okay, it was just a few months ago, but you know how these things go--once you make a decision to grow, it happens overnight.) After all, I live alone now. Lots of time with just me and my thoughts. And it's worked. It's worked well. (My neighbors think I'm a little weird, as I talk to myself while grooming, cooking, and walking around the neighborhood, but whatever.)

And maybe it's because of this that I've finally discovered the value of alone time.

For example: if, thanks to being on vacation with the LT and his buddies and a general honeymoon atmosphere in which we are always together, often without clothes...if, thanks to all that, I don't get any alone time, life feels different. It feels weird. It's a little hard to think. And harder still to talk properly, and even harder to type--I had to double and triple check this post for homynyms.

I mentioned this to him just a few days ago, as I noticed that I hadn't spent any recent time mentally composing blog posts--i.e., I'd actually had things to do in REAL LIFE--and he said with concern, "Should I leave you alone?"

Which was a pertinent question at the time, as we were actually both in his bathroom, him leaning on the counter, watching me mug for him in the mirror as I went through my out-of-shower routine.

"Not at all," is what I believe I said, and I meant it 110%. I'm infatuated, after all, and if giving away brain cells is what it takes to hang out with him, then here I am, world, stick a needle in my brain and start sucking!

Is it true that women bloggers are less funny after we get in relationships, and if so, is this why? And if I'm okay with this, am I letting down "the Side"? Discuss.