If a Smile Crosses Your Face and No-One's There To See It, Does It Exist?

I am in LOVE with my own company. When I’m away from it for any length of time my thoughts are pulled back to it, missing it, wondering what it’s doing and whether it’s missing me too. It makes me feel almost giggly thinking about it.

So it follows that it always surprises me when people who I class as deep thinkers express an aversion to being by themselves. Why, I wonder (to myself)? The theory goes that it’s down to people fearing what they’ll start thinking, torturing themselves even, all the bad stuff coming out. It’s true that it can be an invite to a plus none pity party. An all nighter that never knows when to stop. But otherwise, is it always so bad? Should we only ever see ourselves reflected in the eyes of others? And is it odd that I find that I’m the opposite?

Confession time - I can be quite grumpy. I don’t need much to prompt it but when a cloud descends I find it hard to gee up and snap out of it. It’s not that I don’t like people or their company but the only thing that will get me back to a reasonable mood is a bit of quiet time to reset the soul. Then I’m fine, can join in again and act like a half normal human being.

But while people who know me would agree that I’m a grouch, it’s not a side of me that ‘I’ know. That’s a side reserved for the social me. On my own, I’m happy and a contented a little sunbeam. I potter, I mutter, I pontificate and I acknowledge that there is a world out there that I am happy to rejoin when the time comes. But I’m rarely moody.

Part of this comes from the fact that it’s what other people say that makes me feel bad and will readily accept that I don’t deal with criticism well. But who does?? And listening to opinion after opinion on what I should be doing with my life, or what others would do in my shoes and what they have done which led to them being so great and everything is not my idea of a good time. But bless them, they only have my best interests at heart!

I have no plans to spend my life as a recluse. I repeat, I like other people, I really do. I’m simply saying that I champion the inner realm. It’s not selfish, it’s not wallowing in it, it’s not to be feared. And if you know what’s good for you, you’ll grab one of life’s simplest of pleasures whenever you can. Preferably now, because you being here is putting me in a bad mood.