How to be alone

I might be a hippie at heart. I mean, like a trendy hippie. Who still likes to drink my Starbucks (Trenta, black iced tea with whole milk instead of H2O and raspberry instead of classic), still likes to get massages and facials, who prefers girls weekends to Sedona or Prescott while sleeping in uber comfy beds that envelop me like clouds, and someone who loves her sock bun in her hair and a mimosa at brunch on Sunday.
I am a trendy hippie. Which is probably why I like Tanya Davis and her spoken word artsy music. I was introduced to her piece "How To Be Alone" and I totally fell in love.
I first heard of this lovely little ditty on FB. Someone posted it and I clicked on it.
I watched it over and over and over again.
The words washing over me in some sort of verbal, hypnotic absolution.
A concept so simple, so pure and so freeing.
How to be alone.
How to be alone. How to move through life without the buffer of a cell phone, a friend, a book, a newspaper. How to instead to look life in the eye as you walk among the throngs of everyone. The moving, vibrating pulse of life. How to disconnect yourself enough from that overwhelming,  interwoven, living breathing, suffocating, mass of humanity to appreciate each single being that makes up the rush.
I get lost in trying to fill my mind all day. I work at trying to keep up with everything, involved with everything, a part of everything.
   I am a marinater. I take something in, I let it sit in my brain, I marinate on it. Let it really soak in.
I saw this clip over a year ago. And it took root. It started slowly, I bought her cd. I liked, still like, the rhythm of her music. The way it slips into your head and reverberates around it. Its like a really comfortable sweater.
I've lived in LA by myself. So I assumed that I knew how to be alone, how to be comfortable in public alone. But I wasnt. I hate being alone. I'm fine running to the store or the library or a bookstore. I'm ok but uncomfortable going to the gym by myself. I guess the whole point is that right now, I am learning how to be alone.
How to be ok with walking streets by myself or perhaps (like the artist suggests) going to dinner by myself.
Looking at the families around me, the people, the dates. All that life moving forward to an unseen end.
An unknown conclusion.
I am learning how to be comfortable that there is no one next to me. No one that I can text at 3am when I wake with a bad dream. No one that will kiss my cheek before bed and tell me that they love me.
I am learning to be ok that I am almost 33 and have yet to experience the great adventure that great love and marriage is. And I'm getting to be ok with that. I am getting to be truly, deeply happy with a state of singlehood that I am in.
Sometimes, when I go to the market after work and I pick up my wine and some gourmet nonsense that I want for dinner and maybe a pint of that really amazing gelato, I get behind in line with a stay at home mom. She has two kids screaming in the basket and a mixture of cheap mac and cheese, milk, cheerios, and other homey family style items. I look at her and I wonder if she wishes she were me. I know that beyond that stupid gelato I have, is a desire to fill a hole. The stay at home mom will later cook dinner for two kids while they play. She will watch them and adore them and they adore her, even if they are embarrassing her by screaming about gummy bears right now. Later, she will crawl into bed with her husband and watch some news channel. And she will sleep. I am a little jealous of her. I know this sounds selfish maybe self serving and vapid. But I wonder do we all secretly wish to be on that "greener" grass?
I guess the point is, I am leaning to love where I am. The road that I am on. I will love it, no matter where it takes me. I have no idea what is in store. But I am going someplace. Alone or with someone.

For your viewing pleasure.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7X7sZzSXYs