Day 1: I am totes onto this staying home thing. I could use a break. I’m going to garden and meditate and do yoga and just be still.
Day 2: Houseparty! OMG that is a great idea for an app. I wonder how many people are on it……holy cow heaps. Great I’ll just give Kaz a call and go back to being shanti.
Day 3: Wow who knew that 6 hours could be taken up on Houseparty. Hmmmm Ok back to being productive. First, I have to go to Officeworks and get a pad and pen. Crucial things here to be creative with.
PM: Only 2 glasses of Rose tonight, got a bit tipsy last night watching Sex Education on Netflix
Day 4: Ok I need out. I need a party, a gathering of people a TED talk, an open mic, a concert, a chat with the neighbour’s cat…here kitty kitty. OH WELL FUCK OFF THEN KITTY DON’T COME HERE.
Insert toe tapping sound here…….
I do my best to be 100% transparent in life. I do my best to tell the truth. I do my best to ensure that people are not harmed by my words or actions even though I know that this is impossible some of the time, especially every 28 days when my hormones take control of my emotions. I do my best to own my actions and take responsibility for my choices. I do my best to lie in bed at night and be grateful for all that I have. I do my best to smile at people I don’t know. I do my best to compliment at least one person every day. I do my best to break the armour that still has a hold around my heart and wallet from outdated paradigms. I do my best to JUST BE. But as an extrovert, fuck that’s been hard! Until this last week facing self-isolation for potentially 1-3 months whilst living alone.
It has been 2 weeks since my last social gathering. Something feels weird. Something feels out of place. Something feels like it’s changing! It has become evident that to JUST BE and survive living alone mentally and emotionally through this, I need to embrace the introvert that lies within whom I have never taken the time to meet. Extroverts don’t make time for themselves, well this one hasn’t. Social time is much more important. Connecting, listening, having fun, gathering, dancing, drinking, talking and shagging.
It took a health pandemic in my outer world to create a space for me to meet this introvert. Oh bloody hell, what if she’s boring and I don’t like her. Urrrrgh ok well it looks like we are stuck together now so show your face guuurl!
Well hellloooo, Maggie is it? Not sure why, she just feels like a Maggie. She is content hidden away with no plans, is she mad! She picks up a book and immerses herself in it. She sees the phone ring and doesn’t always feel a need to pick it up. She looks at groups starting up everywhere on line to connect but she doesn’t have the desire in her to join them all. Who are you Maggie? Have you always been inside of me waiting for me to be still so we could meet? I have never heard you or seen you or met you as I have always been busy joining groups and talking on phones and making plans to go out.
“Want a beer?” I ask her, to which she replies, maybe later. MAYBE LATER?? There may not be a later Maggie come on drink with me please. But she is smiling and content watching the leaves on the trees rustle and the clouds change formation in the sky.
I am totally surrendering to her, she is at the helm now and guiding me through this new world very gently. She is teaching me that being alone does not have to mean being lonely. I know this self-isolation thing has just begun but for an extrovert, even 2 days without seeing people can be an eternity. I thought I was actually going to be lonely only 6 days in but in fact… I’m not, as Maggie is right here with me, part of me, teaching me how to JUST BE. Teaching me how to enjoy my own company, teaching me to notice and observe nature which is one of the only things around me that is stable. My lifelong FOMO is now turning into FOMME – Fear of missing me!
I like my extrovert side, I would feel lost if I had to give that up forever but for now, CoVID-19 is giving me the chance to see myself and the world through a self-loving lens. I am looking forward to squeezing all of you on the other side of this and getting drunk with Maggie!
Love Lainie
