The Empty Chair

The other day, I sat alone at a table for two at the coffee shop. I spent a lot of time staring at the empty chair across from me, and I wondered what it would be like to have someone sitting there. With me. Sometimes sitting alone at a table drives me crazy. For some reason that day I didn't wish that seat was occupied. I liked the way the sun slanted over it, and I liked being quiet and on my own.

Actually, I enjoyed being alone almost all day. I like the feeling of independence you get when you're out on your own and haven't got anywhere to be. You can just go wherever, and watch other people, and think your thoughts. It's nice. I have to say that it's also nice to go somewhere because someone else promised to be there, just to see you. I need that sometimes.

Being alone isn't so bad though. I find that after a certain time, I crave it. I can feel myself turning inwards. It happens to me in the Winter. I know that this is surely a season for friends and family, but I can feel my strange inner solitude creeping up on me. The unbreakable solitude that comes from knowing that there is part of me (just as there is in everyone) that know one will ever really know. It doesn't depress me. In fact, it gives me a comfortingly un-shakable sense of identity.

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November as a month was like running around with weights on my ankles. Now I feel like the weights have been taken off, and the race seems so much easier... I'm proud of what I managed last month. Like writing a novel despite all odds, and all the voices in my head that told me to give up and sleep instead. (To those who are interested, I am setting my novel aside for now. It was so hard to write, and I just need some space from it. What I might do is go back to the novel I wrote last year for NaNo. I feel that it has the most potential out of anything I've done as a result of the novel-in-a-month thing.)

What would be really marvelous is if December made me feel like there was no race at all. I would like to relax, and maybe get back to some leisure reading.

But the craziness of December is creeping up on me. Christmas is coming. The holiday music has begun to play, the stores have started to get more frighteningly crowded. We lit an Advent candle yesterday. Each year I try desperately to make Christmas as simple as it was when I was little. It gets a little more difficult each year. I still try to hold onto Christmas the way I remember it, because I think it's worth it. I try not to fall into the cynicism, and anger, and depression, and anxiety that grips some people during this time of the year. To me, Christmas is about spending time with people you love, baking them cookies, taking a time out, and lighting up those long, long nights that come as we approach the solstice. (Oh, and Jesus too.) What I'm saying is that I want Christmas to continue to mean more than stress, and commercials.

Today I had a conversation with a friend in a blustery parking lot that got me thinking about hearts. I see so much happening around me; people fighting, and loving, and trying, and wanting. Yes, there are people on the other side of the world who are suffering, but I think that if we looked a little closer to home we might realize that you don't always have to look that far to find people who are hurting. Sometimes I feel helpless in the face of that, and it makes me want to write out the truth every day of my life.