Saturday Afternoon

It's 3:02 pm and my neighbor is listening to Beyoncé's "Sweet Dreams" and Taio Cruz's "Dynamite." I think he's the DJ. It's an "electro-pop" party out on the canals today. (Seriously, I know. I Shazammed both songs.)

There's nothing like a beautiful Saturday afternoon at home to put me in a happy place. I don't know how I'm ever going to leave California-- I love the sunshine and the breezes. I love being able to tell myself I'm going to walk to the beach and start seriously writing in 15 minutes, even though I always keep putting it off.

Adam left today. For the first time in a VERY LONG TIME, I am alone on the canals again. It's heavenly.

I feel guilty saying that, because I'm not trying to say that I don't like Adam, or any of the other people who have visited me over the summer. Of course, I love you all. It's just... There's nothing like the freedom of being completely alone. I've heard guys explain it as, "the ability to walk naked around your apartment." I totally get that. I don't do it, because that's weird and I live on the first floor and have windows, but still. Sentiment noted. Solitude = freedom.

So, that's something else to chalk up on the Emily Happiness List: I need alone time. And, I need more than an hour of alone time. When I was at Penn, living with Adam in a house with five other people, I struggled desperately for alone time. It became sort of an issue, leading to lots of fights. Alone time doesn't count as alone time if it's scheduled into someone else's itinerary. And it definitely does not count if the entire time I'm worrying that I'm upsetting someone by being by myself.

So I guess that's another thing. Emily isn't happy when other people are unhappy. Within reason, of course. I'm not saying that I will be thoroughly miserable so long as there are starving children in India, because unfortunately that will probably continue despite my best efforts, but if someone I know is unhappy and there's something I can do about it, I feel obligated to do something, even if it's at the expense of my own happiness.

What alone time really is, to me, is an expanse of time that stretches as far as I want-- for example, an afternoon into an evening, which will end whenever I decide to go to bed. It's exhilarating because time becomes so flexible when I get to choose what to do without any regard to anyone else's feelings. Of course, I can choose to do something for someone else. But even then, I'm choosing for me, not for them. alone time is the ultimate selfishness. I cling to it now because I'm positive that once I actually have to grow up, it won't exist anymore.

The neighbor isn't playing "electro-pop" anymore. Now, I can only hear the faint drone of an airplane and the occasional windchimes. Oh wait-- there he goes again. I'm going to Starbucks.