Solo Space Activity

Recently, I asked to accompany a friend of mine on his morning jog. He politely declined. I thought it was odd that he would decline so I pried further.  "Why don't you want me to come with you?" And he instead asked, "Why do you want to come along in the first place?" Tired of this question and answer session, he obliged. "Jogging is my space." Translation, it's his one solo activity that he claims for his own where he tries to retain his space. His solo quest into alone time. His "sit still" moment with himself, where he gets to think and feel and be in this chaotic world of ours. I applauded him for that revelation. I had often wondered if I was the only one who laid claim to so many solo activities. 

Nevertheless, there is a difference between my friend and I. I (as any avid reader of my blog may have guessed) am hopefully solo. All my activities are done alone. I am not trying to reclaim my space from my partner or my kids or my pesky family. I have my space with lots of activity to be and bask in by myself. There are activities which I relish in taking on solo and I have commented on those activities here. One of them being travel, but I do not balk when someone asks to come with me. Well, I balk but I cave in eventually. I do not quickly assert to the intended company that travel is my thing. Maybe because they would just find it weird. Who the heck likes to travel by themselves?

I also like to take in endless hours of Sex and the City while sipping a glass of wine (bottle in hand) and agreeing with every scripted word they say, something only single people can appreciate. I love to do this without interruption or company. I love to get my nails done solo as well. I've found that these 2 activities, Sex and the City and the mani/pedi sessions always seem to get me out of whatever funk I happen to find myself. They are not my "thing", they are my escape, my jolt, my energizer. so to speak. 

When I first vacationed in my sister's house, with her husband, 3 kids (ages of 19 and 10), I found it hard to cope. I usually shower and spend an unusual amount of time tending to my face. It's not my thing. It's just what I like to do, or I have gotten used to doing.  My sister immediately found that odd. But it's my thing. It's my alone time with my face. I also like to spend a considerable amount of time in the morning with my coffee. I don't engage in conversation until I've had my cup of Joe and browsed the news headlines on my computer. I don't speak, I don't like to be spoken to and I do a lot of thinking, plotting of my life, my day and if it's a Sunday, my week. With kids that was almost impossible. I was inundated with an influx of "What are you doing, Can I join you, What are you drinking?" questions. It was offsetting. My sister quickly interjected, by saying she understands that some activities are my "thing" and I may be used to doing them solo but with a family so many of those things have to go. "You have to make room in your life and in your schedule to accommodate others, preferably the ones you love, otherwise who are you?" The eternal soloist. 

I thought about this statement when my friend refused the invitation for a jog. I thought, "Was my sister right?" or was she being the quintessential mother who has learned to loose all sense of self once the 2.3 kids arrive? Even when we do make room in our lives for our loved ones, are there some secret solo activities that we would still like to steal away to relish in? A few years later, my sister confessed to me that she often goes to the mall during her lunch hour by herself to just simmer her thoughts. She doesn't tell her co-workers and she definitely spends longer than an hour. She just likes to get away from the office hassle and the home life hassle and just browse the sale rack at the mall. There, she had confessed to me her one thing. So, you see, even when we do stop being solo, we still have to engage in our one thing. I don't care who you are, you need it to maintain a sense of self.  

Being solo affords us many luxuries, the luxuries some couples wish they could possess. One of them is the pleasure of engaging in all activities, all solo quests, all personal space engagements, by ourselves. For me, my life is my space (I don't have to claim that one activity as my thing) and anyone that comes into it has to ask me to let them invade my thing. Others don't have that luxury they have to actively (and sometimes sneakily) claim steal some personal space for themselves. So, who says single people have it all bad?!