Derry, Northern Ireland

Derry, Northern Ireland
A book I'm working on is set in this town.

Thursday, August 24, 2023

Whining...

I always dreamed of having a cabin up in the woods. Nothing big or fancy, just a couple rooms, on a hillside overlooking a brook that's racing down to a nearby lake, trees thick and green around me. Still connected to the power grid, of course; can't live on just dry goods and food out of a can. Critters about. Maybe a dog, but that wasn't a given.

A front porch, for sure, that I could sit on and see moments like this. Almost dreamlike. Total solitude. I've always been a loner. Never liked having roommates. Never had a lover for long enough to live together, nor did I want to. I can't sleep if someone else is in my room, man or beast.

The love of solitude is growing stronger as I get older. I can stay off to myself for days at a time. Talk myself out of going off into the world for anything unless I have no other choice. "Gotta have milk and bread, Kyle, so out you go." Then I make it as short a trip as possible.

Which is what I did, today. Actually did need milk and bread, so worked up a group of things to do -- prepare an application to renew my passport, go get photos done, take everything to the PO to set it up, buy that milk and bread, stop at a DVD resale place to see what they had, have lunch somewhere, get paperwork from Caladex for Nebraska, then come home. All I did was the paperwork, the photos and the groceries. Put off the application till after Labor Day and en route home had to make myself stop to have a quickie burrito at a Mighty Taco. No DVD stuff, either. I just wanted it all done.

I know one day I'll die alone, and I don't mind. So many people think you'd want to have family and friends around you. It's a staple in most stories about death and dying. But it won't be for me. And I don't really know why I'm okay with that.

I mean, I have a feeling. It may have something to do with being shown, over and over, that I don't really matter to those I know. It's been proven to me in so many times in so many ways. Maybe that's why all I've ever done is just enough to get by. I don't think I'm worth anything more than that. Not even a solitary cabin in the woods.

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