Alone Together

A friend at work recently asked, “Isn’t it kind of a waste of gas for you to come out here only a couple hours a day?”

Yes, yes it is.

It didn’t take me long to figure out that I was using a lot of extra gas to drive (slightly) out of town for a couple hours a day (four days a week) and that I was losing precious minutes of actual work in order to drive to and from. And, although I found an initial creativity surge for my work by being around the travel talk and such, that boost kind of faded too.

But the thing I’ve noticed is, people help. I like people. I like how they care when you come and go. I like having someone to say things to, like, “I can’t not talk with a drawl when I’m on the phone with a southern girl” or “I love this song; Pandora wins again.” I like that no one is tired or blue or having a Monday at exactly the same time. When you’re blue, I’m perky. When I’m having a Monday on Thursday, you’re hanging shamrocks for St. Patrick’s Day. I like not doing that whole 9-5 thing alone.

Because the thing is, I am an alone kind of person. I’m in my head a lot, thinking about things, following analytical rabbit trails that there’s no way any other person could stay with me for. And you know what I love? When I end up in a conversation with someone and realize – oh my goodness, they think about things too. And I can’t follow all their rabbit trails either, but it’s so validating that I’m not the only one who has them. It’s like the line in P.S. I Love You: If we’re all alone, then we’re together in that too.

And it’s not just in a work day that people help. There is so much happening on my computer these days – I mean, work happens there, my dream (i.e., the novel), and leisure (i.e., blog reading, Peoplemag.com, and Scarecrow and Mrs. King on in2tv.com). I could probably – though not without severe mental and eyeball fatigue – spend morning until night on my laptop. You can even sort of half way feel like you’re with people, thanks to facebook and twitter, email, and blog comments.

But then I leave the house. I breathe fresh air, I go to something like my son’s fourth grade Wax Museum of Famous Missourians (did you know Bob Barker is from here?!) and I run into good friends, new friends, my son’s friend’s parents, my children’s teachers, and there’s talking and shared exasperation over our crazy preschoolers and the long line of cars in the McDonalds drive-thru lane because we weren’t the only ones who couldn’t manage supper between work and a school function. And that’s when I feel fully alive, when I’m with people.

It seems weird to write a blog about how I need to get off this darn computer more. But that’s what’s on my mind. Because this week has been stuffed with good friends, lovely sisters, cousins at a basketball game (the picture above), and the aforementioned costumed 10-year-olds delivering speeches about Brad Pitt, Walt Disney, and Joyce C. Hall (huge points for the person who doesn’t have to google him, the man whose name my son drew from the hat). And I feel glad. Glad that I live in a world, with people.