Nothing.

Time alone for me is infrequent.  A mother of a toddler, vibrant, vital and excited to share every ounce of thought and feeling, I am rarely without companion.  Employee of my mother; daughter of my boss, I am often summoned and rewarded with tasks, a life wagered with welcomed busy-ness.

I realize on this day that I don’t like being alone very much.  Often plagued with the question of why, I start to ask and think.  The best way to get to know one’s self is to examine your motivation – why am I upset? Why am I pleased when colloquially I should not be? Why does this sadden/frighten/anger… Why do I seek constant companionship?  I have made many friendships with many different people – mostly with people who proclaim their love of idle, unoccupied free time accompanied by none.  I envy these folks.  Their self-assured lifestyle to take up company with their own favorite people: themselves.

After much self-examination and after a great amount of time and effort put into trying to find some way to spend this day (I cleaned the entire house yesterday, after all) …

Today…

Today is the day I concluded that I don’t like myself very much.  An epiphany occurred.  I’m not upset; I’m not torn; I am sincere. 

I’m confident, I exude happiness, outgoing to a fault – I don’t think that I appear to be the type of person that does not have a strong relationship with the self.  On this day, this day spent alone, no sounds but the wind and the birds sweeping through open windows; a party accompanied by Ranchera and Mariachi music in the neighboring yard with laughs and dancing of the patrons…I almost want to invite myself over.

I spent my childhood as someone else – like most kids, I had a vivid and active imagination.  I was a famous performer or a shipwrecked princess.  I was an architect, constructing mud into villages or I was a profound artist putting color to canvass without any actual talent or plan or justification.  I would be someone else, I’d start a project, and I’d never finish it because I was already excited about being the next someone else.  As I aged, I took to the stage and literally acted like someone else for years.  Into college, I shapeshifted into an almost dogmatic revolutionary.  Motherhood hit, another role I could play – that of mother and wife.  I removed wife from the resume and got to play single mother.  I don’t think I have spent many days living genuinely, authentically as myself.  I realize my life has been a string of playing parts.  Even while cleaning my home and mopping my floor or vacuuming my couch, I tuned out the monologue inside my mind with loud music that I performed to an audience of myself, imagining I was someone else, somewhere else.

I don’t like alone time because I’m confronted with the sounds of my own thoughts; the ache of my own feelings.  I am antagonized by my own anxieties.  I beat myself up.  I tear myself down.  I remind myself of my unworthiness; of my selfishness; of my lack of parenting skill; of my lack of anger management; of the ease which tears leave my face and I am broken.  I don’t like alone time because I don’t like myself.  For hours I have repeated this to myself.  I’m so forgiving, not because I truly forgive and move on but because other people’s opinions of me rank so much higher than my own opinion of myself.  I am so trusting not because someone earns or deserves my trust but because I’m that desperate to surround myself with human companionship – regardless of whether or not they are worth my time and companionship.  Finally, I give love so freely but not because I should but because I starve myself of it, give it away with the hopes it will return to me through someone else.

I don’t like me.  I hope to try and get to know me, but right now, I don’t like me.  I hope that’s okay; it probably is.  I’m not the first person in the world who realizes they don’t have a very good relationship with themselves.  I hope, more than anything, I can do something to strengthen that relationship because without it, I really am nothing.

With...nothing,
C