Sometimes, I’m surprised at how much time I spend by myself. I don’t really realize it until I’m a few hours into either reading or watching something. I wonder if that’s either a good or a bad thing, or if I’m getting out enough.
I worried about the same thing in college, Americorps, and grad school. I worried that I was missing out on big parties, or big events. I don’t do that anymore. I know what makes me happy and I stick with those things. I don’t particularly enjoy noisy parties, or clubs, or binge drinking. I like concerts, plays, sporting events, museums, and catching up with people over beers.
Today was one of those weekends when it was perfect storm of people being out of town or having plans and I was left (for the most part) without things to do on Saturday or Sunday. (I did make it to a Lynx game with a friend on Friday night, so I didn’t feel like a complete homebody over the weekend.) I decided just to roll with it and see where things would take me.
If I don’t have big plans, I usually like to make sure I have two things lined up: plans to exercise and ingredients for a big meal. Those things eat up time and make me feel good. I ran three miles on Saturday morning. I was struggling near the end due to the excessive humidity. Luckily, I got back home in time before the storms came.
I decided to tackle a project on my apartment. I like to have some tangible things accomplished if I don’t have plans. I painted part of the wall in my living room. It didn’t take too long, but it was long enough to force me to drag myself away from my computer.
Later, I knew I needed to write and that I wouldn’t get it done if I stayed in the house. I headed to a coffee shop just up the block. I stayed for about two hours and wrote a decent amount. While I like to think of myself as a reclusive writer typing away, going somewhere in public to write helps. Afterwards, I decided that I didn’t want to go home quite yet, so I went into Uptown and visited my favorite bookstore, Magers and Quinn. I didn’t buy anything, but I walked around the stacks for about 40 minutes. It was relaxing. (And I talked to a few people.)
A friend called and I talked with him for a bit. I then headed home to make dinner, drink some wine, and end the night watching Netflix. I made a decent pasta with meat sauce. I always tend to gorge on pasta. I felt great.
This morning I spent the first few hours of the day reading the newspaper and drinking coffee. I headed over to another friends house to chat and have more coffee. When I got back home I decided to try my hand at another run. I did just over six miles. I was exhausted afterwards.
I then went to church and read, and wrote. While it may not have been an extremely social weekend, I was happy with how it turned out.
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