Today started out alone but I returned home with two fish, two snails, a frog, and my old chums, Ben and Jerry.
The best alone time of my life was when I fit everything I owned into two suitcases and moved to Scotland. I got there just a few hours before turning 30 and didn't stay nearly long enough. Everyday I either took the bus or was dropped by my aunt in Edinburgh. I didn't have a lot of plans. I was sad about aging and about dumping a less worthy creature to whom I'd been very generous with my love. My family was there and it was good to be with them, but for the most part I wandered around alone. I rode a ferris wheel alone. I ate meals alone. I saw museums, cemeteries and castles alone. It was one of those phases when I didn't know if I should get a tattoo, start dating women or study photography. But something had to change about me.
I moved back to NYC and as always, Nat and Chuck took me in. In several weeks I'd landed enough freelancing gigs to pay the rent and built my first website (with much assistance from Chuck in between our many trilogy-a-thons.) But before I came back there was a week I spent in London that reset everything.
I thought a lot about the kind of person I should be with. Strangely, my now husband (then friend) came to mind more than anyone else at that time (He still has a postcard I'd sent him from the UK.) But then I got to London where I had a little room with an electric tea kettle, a sink I could pee in late at night when the community bathroom was too scary, and a single bed. I woke every morning before anything was open, too excited to sleep. I wandered the streets until everything closed, and returned to my room where I propped my legs against the wall while I laid on the bed to make them stop hurting. When men made eyes at me I turned my own down. When I was approached, I clammed up. I wasn't shy - there was just so space for someone else and I didn't have the right words to make a stranger understand. That was the week my heart stopped hurting. That was the week that I finally worked things out with myself.
I fantasize about that time in my life more than any other. It was so exciting - like the beginning of a love affair. And I suppose it was a love affair of one.
I married Logan very quickly and kept searching my subconscious to feel out whether this was real or what a woman in her 30's does to escape the loneliness. Each time the searching came up with the same thing: This was nothing to do with being alone. This was about being with someone incredible.
Logan's been gone since Sunday morning. They're shooting upstate at a B&B and he gets back tomorrow night. I miss him like crazy, but when he told me he was going a part of me stretched out and took up some space. I was excited about being undisturbed for three days. But now I want him to come home.
Nat and baby Jake came over yesterday. We ate Chinese food and went to the park. Nat is an example of why I want to have children. Jake makes her a better person. Tomorrow night I'm watching Burlesque with Nat and Ang 2 (we're like Thing 1 and Thing 2 - I just had the good sense to appear first.) Nobody wants to see Burlesque. It's an obligation for us to watch a film that has so many wigs, dance moves, and divas.
And today I interviewed for something I really want after writing a ton of my book. Then I went to the pet store where I picked up some chewy things for the girls and all those little aqua babies I mentioned earlier (I don't like empty fish bowls in the house.) New York City was in good spirits today with the weather getting warmer. I realized it'll kill me to move back West and I hate that I'm such a sucker for this town. In 1998 I got out of a cab and into a dorm room overlooking Washington Square Park. Other NYUers nicknamed me "Baby Spice" because I was naive and ridiculously dressed (so many pastels!) I wised up pretty quickly. It was back when this town had more prostitutes, drugs, and homeless people. It was just before Giuliani wiped them away. I'm glad I made it in time to see what all the fuss was about. This city gave me backbone and as corny as it sounds, this is where I grew up. I wasn't a woman before NYC (Baby Spice), but once I got here I had to become one fast or I'd be run down.
There are many single people in this city but none of my "single" friends really feel singular to me. This city is like the hottest date you'll ever have. There's so much freakin' zest and bustle. I tell people all the time that my deal with New York is like an abusive relationship: No one knows what it's like when we're alone together.
In past relationships I'd have dreams about ending them and moving in with a bunch of girls, free to have pink bedding and Pomeranians. There's a lot of space to have things your way when you haven't committed to someone and for that reason I really never believed in marriage. Logan tolerates my pink glass lamp and he loves the dogs. I love him. And I love my own company quite a bit too. I don't know how to be a writer, trapped all up in my head without loving myself first (but I presume whiskey would be involved, especially if you ask Hemingway.) I've made my peace with being alone. No matter what the circumstances, it's still pretty precious.
Today was swell. And tonight I get to sleep with the dogs who are generally banned from the bed (pet owners are never truly "alone.") But I miss Logan just for his Logany traits - not for the reassurance his presence would give me. And that's how I know it's worth giving up my girly bedroom. Now let's just hope he likes the new frog (cos it's staying.)
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