I had several discussions this week and last with people about getting together. The days got ahead of me and nothing was planned for tonight- Friday. It is a blessing or a curse spending the evening alone. It was a great week for work and I saw friends and spent some quality time with Jackson. I wasn’t thinking about tonight until late this afternoon. Now it is here and I am by myself.   Four months ago this night would have been about a nice dinner cooked on the BBQ by Jordon. I would have been in our kitchen making a salad and homemade dressing and steamed asparagus or something of the sort. Jordon would have DVR’ed a movie for us to watch afterward. This is how our Friday nights were. They were the unwinding night for us. Discussions of the week and planning for the weekend. What project would we get into? Which friends would be stopping by? Wine or whiskey and ginger on the table. Jordon was an awesome cook. He was taking hobby-cooking classes on the side until he got really sick and didn’t have the energy.

 Flash forward to tonight. I have the backdoor open to the cool air and I am sitting here at my computer. Writing to you. To me. And to Jordon even. Life is very different now. I am learning to be alone. I am learning what this feels like and to get comfortable with it. I have no choice- cramming another person in this space of mine wouldn’t work right now, and maybe not for a long, long time. Or maybe sooner rather than later~ but the truth is it doesn’t really matter right now. Right now, tonight, is me, myself, and I.

 Here is the conversation going on in my head right now~

 You’ve spent your entire adult life being a part of someone else’s life and enjoying the companionship of it. Now it is just you. So, Holly…Whom do you want to be? What do you want for yourself? Is there anything new you would like to do that you weren’t able to do before? What did you compromise on before that you don’t have to now? Art, chick flicks, salads every night for dinner? You can watch something on TV that you actually find interesting, as you know, you had no control of the remote of the TV for 14 years. Maybe that’s why you lost interest in TV.

 I guess what I am trying to help myself understand, and maybe if you are going through the same- try to embrace this time for reflection inward and not outward. Inward is a blank canvass that I can paint and draw whatever I want and be happy with it. And if I want to scrap it and start over I can. There are no rules here. I am not bound by anything, not even my own decisions. I don’t feel the need to stay in a box of opinion. As Jordon used to point out often during stressful situations- “Holly, you don’t have to do anything!” Outward refection on this kind of evening is a source of loneliness and absence. I have a choice here to take. I can step into the view of inward refection and build a picture of myself that I want to live and experience. Or I can step into the view of outward refection and curl up under my covers and sleep past the absence and void. What a crappy evening that would be. Jordon’s illness and subsequent passing reminded me of compartmentalization of the day. What we have is today. Not yesterday and not tomorrow. I don’t want to forget that. So I have tonight. And tonight I will do some nice things for myself. I will delve into my mind and remember things of interest to me and have some fun. I think I’m getting the hang of this.