Alone, Lonely or Just Independent

I was sitting at my favorite restaurant this week and while eating my meal I noticed a little girl at the next table kept looking at me. After a while I started checking myself to see if I had spilled something on me or had something on my face that made her keep staring in such a way.

Her father was sitting next to her and tried to get her attention back on her meal but it was obvious she was thinking about something to do with me. After a while I seen her lean over to her dad she said “I think she’s lonely”

Kids say unusual things sometimes as they observe the world around them. She was making reference to me sitting alone at my table. I frequently go out to dine by myself. I am one of those independent people. If I want to do something and don’t happen to have anyone with me I will still go by myself and do it.

I never give it a second thought. It’s something I have done for years. Dining out is not the only thing I do by myself. I have been known to get lectures from my friends on going to an afternoon Major league baseball game or a Rock concert sometimes long distances from where I live.

What I do give a second thought to is when people think it peculiar that I do these things. Why should a person live their life content to only do the things their friends want to do or have time to do?

I have an eclectic listening taste in music. I think about all the wonderful experiences in music I would have missed had I not gone by myself because my friends did not like that kind of music or did not have the time or money to go to a concert. I think about the museums I would have missed or the great people watching experiences.

If you are with other people you miss a lot of what is going on around you. Not that I feel that is a bad thing. I think friends are great. And I love doing things with them. But they can distract from seeing a lot of life’s experiences

One such instance that comes to mind is when I met an online friend from Scotland who turned me on to a Man named Fish. His music is amazing. To me he has one of those voices that sings in the soul. His lyrics are great, but I just enjoy his voice.

I was living on the road with my husband about four hours from home. So none of my friends were anywhere near me. Fish made a trip to the US to do a small concert tour, which is a very rare event. I had a choice, go by myself, since my husband was working, or miss the rare event. So I drove 3 hours from where we were staying to go to his concert.

Not only did I get to see his concert and enjoy his music I got to meet him, talk with him and shared a few laughs. But I also met many other people that even years later I still have occasional contact with. It was a phenomenal experience for me that I will never have again. Since I left early to miss the rush hour traffic of Atlanta I also got to go to a really neat exhibit called the Cyclorama and Civil War museum near the Atlanta zoo.

Had I gone with friends I would have left at the last minute not gone to the exhibit on a whim and not met the great talented people I met that day. Not to mention getting to drive home with the scent of Fish’s cologne on my shoulder from a hug I got from the gentle giant.

Was it wrong for me to go by myself to such an event? I don’t think so. To most people what I did was outrageous, bordering on eccentric.

This was the way they felt about my vacation to go and stay with a friend and his family in Scotland when I had met him on the Internet.

By being independent I have done something none of my friends have done. I have traveled across the oceans and got to experience what it is like to live in another country. Not from a motel room as a tourist; though I did do some touristing, but was involved in day-to-day life with a real family and their friends that lived there.

My friends thought I was crazy. They thought I was throwing myself into danger and I would never live through it. Perhaps it was a bit dangerous. Perhaps it is a bit of an adrenalin rush to do things like this. But my life is exciting, and adventurous and full of experiences that many people never have and never will have.

I am not completely careless when I do things like this. I consider alternatives incase things go wrong.

I think of the lecture I got from some rock band friends of mine telling me it “Doesn’t look right” when they came across me walking back to my car a couple blocks away from Wrigley Field after a afternoon baseball game I went to by myself. They wouldn’t let me enjoy the rest of my leisurely walk thru the neighborhood to my car cause they were afraid or worried of how strangers would perceive me. (It’s not a bad Chicago neighborhood. or it wasn’t at that time) They lectured me all the way to my car. I just told them I had wanted to go to the game and I couldn’t find anyone else at that time that wanted to go. Each one told me if I to a game in the future to call one of them, and not go by myself. Most people would have felt they were a dangerous bunch to be around.

Perhaps I am naive. But I feel if something bad is destined to happen to me it can happen if I cross the street in front of my own house.

I think of that little girl and her words about thinking I was lonely. I only hope her father would one day encourage her to know the difference between lonely, alone and independent. And that she can find the joy in independence, and will be able to savor the experience of eating a delicious dinner alone in a restaurant without a thought of being lonely.

Holiday Season

I tend to remember years ago if someone even so much as mentioned Christmas before Thanksgiving, (the 4th Thursday in November) people would give you all kinds of lectures on commercialism. They would tell you that the Christmas season and holiday shopping does not start till the day after Thanksgiving.This year Halloween was not even over and Christmas decorations and gift boxed items were already going up in stores. Funny thing is that no one is complaining about it or even seeming to notice.

I went shopping this week. Mind you, it is still a week before Thanksgiving, not only were all the stores full of various Holiday season decorations, but there was Christmas music playing in many of the stores. Even more unusual was that the store employees seemed to be enjoying it.

What happened to the cries of commercialism and lectures on when the holiday season is supposed to begin?. Could it be that people are in the Holiday spirit already? Could it be they are just taking advantage of being able to shop early to beat the rush, or do people just not care any more? It’s not as though they can do anything about it anyway.With the cost of holiday gift giving these days you have to start months before the holiday not to feel the horrible pinch of the Santa money belt.

Many stores have done away with the layaway so waiting and getting everything right before the holiday when everything is on sale is out of the equation.. So paying full price for having to shop early is going to also cost the seasonal consumer more. Do the stores think the buying public won’t notice?

Probably the majority will notice their money is not going as far but will not fully realize that it is due to the creative thinking of the department stores executives raising their bottom lines.

I have to wonder if there is ever going to be a point where people say enough is enough. Some times I think the everyday people have just given up; perhaps feeling there is nothing we can do but just suck it up and go with the flow..

Companies downsize. cut bonus’. find ways to keep their employees from making more money while the cost of living keeps getting higher. People have to work more hours and harder to fill in the spaces of the smaller labor forces and paycuts. The outrageous fuel prices cause a trickle down effect touching every part of our lives. And now the holiday season starts in mid October instead of the end of November.

It just keeps getting worse every year.. People are too tired to fight back.. Too tired to complain or organize ways to get around the system.. It seems instead, that people are embracing the fact that they can start their holiday shopping early so they don’t have to do all that last minute crash shopping. They are willing to pay the non-sale prices just to get an early start..

I guess I have to admit, when I went shopping with my husband earlier this week I was doing some early Christmas shopping myself. I got a couple things that were hard to find items.. I enjoyed looking at the decorations and sang along with the occasional holiday song..I didn’t complain aloud about the early holiday setups.On the way home I just enjoyed the colorful leaves on the trees that the late autumn has left behind.. I thought myself quite clever to be ahead of the holiday shopping game..

Now, I am shaking my head with a little grin, knowing I fell right into the store’s game plan and paid more and earlier; just helping their before holiday season bottom line..Oh Well…. Fa La Lala la.. lala la la