Hanging Out

I've been spending an awful lot of time by myself. It's late at night as I write this and I realize I am a bit lonely. My work as an artist currently doesn't bring me into contact with people. It just seems everything I do to connect with people makes me feel worse.

Over the years I have hung out in a few online chat rooms. I think they are probably the loneliest places I have ever been. Recently I tried out the message boards on IMDb. I like films and some TV programs and I thought it might be nice to chat with people about them. Eh. Not so much. It's a discussion, but no real connection. It looks like I am talking with other human beings, but it's just a bunch of comments that don't connect people together. At least I don't feel connected.

I've taken to eating lunch out at a local cafe. The food is really good and it gets me out of the house and around people. During the summer I sat outside and that was great. Now I sit inside with a book, but I think the other customers think I'm odd to sit by myself. Unless of course they don't notice me at all and I am just being paranoid. Could be.

I've gotten to know the counter ladies. They know my name. They know I always order ice tea. But lately I feel that I'm not making any real contact with them either. I go in and say hi, start up some sort of conversation, but something isn't right. Are they too busy? Do I talk about idiotic things? Am I too old? Are they too young?

I'm going to stop now before this gets truly maudlin. Maybe I'll call my mom. She's odd and irritating, but one nice thing, I never feel lonely around her!

After All These Years

The look on his face is adoration. So sweet!

My husband and I have been together since we were 20 & 21. I knew after 4 days that I would spend my life with him. I was hiking up a mountain. With a bunch of summer campers. They always gave me that assignment cuz I owned a pair of hiking boots. Hiking is a great place to think. I was the last on the trail -- making sure no camper fell off the mountain or got too tired. And it just came to me. This is the man I will spend my life with. Things were very clear that summer. I saw him every day. We ate meals together, spent our days-off doing laundry and getting to know each other. In retrospect I might be tempted to think it was idyllic. But it wasn't. It was real. We belonged together.

At the time I thought we were very mature. Today, looking back, I think good lord we were young! I mean - really? 20? Who knows their mind at 20? But every time I wondered if this was the right path, if we should stay together and get married, I would pray. Every time the answer came back, you belong together.

A few years later a friend of ours wrote a wonderful essay that was published in a national newspaper. In it she talked about our relationship. It was about liking each other and including other people in the circle that was us. It actually inspired other friends of ours, who thought they were just friends, to look and see they really wanted to be married partners. While the writer didn't use the terminology, one theme was we were good together, we belonged.

This has not been a fairy tale marriage. Before our wedding there was family pressure to break up. Over the years my husband and I have had our share of difficulty. Really. Downright crappy times. Not once have I felt . . . "and they lived happily ever after." And to friends who have known some of the troubles I sometimes wonder how do I explain why we are still together?

But as I was watching a TV show the other night I got my answer. In the midst of all sorts of chaos -- you know, flood, famine, evil curses -- one of the characters says to another, "You belong together." And I realized that it's true for us. We belong together.