This weekend, my husband is in Las Vegas with his brothers and their dad. Being the creative, independent woman that I am, I took the opportunity to drive down to Athens, Ohio for a film festival.
This wasn’t the first time I drove down to Athens by myself to do something awesome. Two years ago, Kristin and Dannielle of Everyone Is Gay came to Ohio University as part of their college tour. I had just moved to Columbus, and I was so excited at the prospect of finally meeting two of my favorite feminists. I couldn’t get anyone to go with me, but that didn’t deter me.
Meeting Kristin and Dannielle was amazing.
Seeing independent films and meeting filmmakers was amazing.
But the cool stuff I did is less important than the act of doing it, and doing it alone.
I used to live in France, where I discovered the joys of going out alone. I dined alone, went shopping alone, read books in parks alone, and eventually even traveled alone.
Falling in love with Dan didn’t eliminate my independent streak. While I love spending time with him, and our shared adventures are my favorites, I don’t need him by my side to attend cool events.
Sometimes we want to do different things. Sometimes I can’t find a friend to join me in my different things. So I do them myself.
I’m not just okay with doing my own thing–I relish it! I might not always love driving all the way to Athens and back by myself, but I do love my freedom and independence and total comfort in solitary adventures.
So this weekend I went to a film festival.
What did you do?
I like doing things alone, the only thing that I don’t love doing is eating out alone. I don’t mind at little cafes or coffee shops but at busy restaurants I get a weird sense of guilt for taking up a two-top when it’s just me.
When I eat meals alone, I’m almost always dining at an unusual hour. Like eating lunch at 2pm or dinner at 4pm, so I don’t feel badly about taking up their space. Plus I’m a really good tipper. 😉
I used to like doing things alone—shoot, I lived in England and traveled around Europe alone. But then when I traveled Europe alone after I was married (while he was deployed), oh how I longed for a companion to share things with. I even picked going to places that we had both been to before (or that he had been to so he wouldn’t “miss out”), but it just wasn’t the same. Then again, these days I relish in my alone time when I get to go to Target by myself, or to the coffee shop. I guess things are all relative for how independent we want to be/feel comfortable with as we grow older.
I think part of the difference in feelings is the duration and frequency of being alone. When Dan was still traveling for work every week, I didn’t mind him being gone one night because I could take a hot bubble bath or watch a movie he doesn’t like. But the cherished feelings for my alone time vanished when he was traveling for two or three nights at a time. Then my bed just felt too big!
Now that he’s NOT traveling, I practically turned cartwheels last week when he was gone for more than 24 hours. I HAD THE WHOLE HOUSE TO MYSELF!!!!! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!