As Diana so eloquently calls it.... Emotional Vomit.

I have been home alone for approximately 4 days, 15 hours, 6 minutes, and 20 odd seconds.

And I've been lonely for approximately 4 days, 15 hours, and 6 minutes.

The 20 odd seconds was long enough to discover that suddenly.... I do not like being alone.

Which is a new emotion for me.

Perhaps it's the lack of full time employment that makes the days seem so much longer. Perhaps it's the feeling of being "in limbo" and not really doing anything productive. I leave for Poland in three weeks and one day- and I must confess I'm not in a huge hurry to be job hunting, at least until I get back. Maybe by then I'll have figured out what I want to do next.

So maybe it's the endless days stretching ahead that's got me down in the dumps. Maybe it's the constant re-hashing of what I should have done differently at work. Perhaps if I'd tried harder to not let my boss get to me, I wouldn't have been the one to get laid off. Maybe it's the missing my friends at work. Maybe it's the constant dwelling on "what on earth do I want to be when I grow up" that's getting to me. The quieter it is, the more I hear myself, and frankly I'm tired of my own company.

But what's got me laid low tonight is missing my Emily. I haven't really enjoyed being alone since she died. But the few times I have been alone, I had something to distract me. Like work. Now all I seem to have is time, and time makes me think, and when I think, I think about Emily.

Used to be when my parents were going away somewhere, I'd be counting down the days. Not because I was glad for them to be gone... but simply because I just enjoyed being alone. It made me feel like a real "grown-up". I could go where I want and not have to worry about calling. I could cook to my heart's content and make as many messes as I wanted without driving my poor mother batty. I could watch endless episodes of M*A*S*H and stay up until the wee hours of the morning without disturbing anyone. Until Emily came home. Then suddenly my peace and quiet turned into a whirling tornado of hysterics, dramatics, antics, and any other "ics" you can think of. And Emily always believed that she was rescuing me from boredom by showing up. After all, of the two of us.... I definitely was the boring one. If we were flavors of ice cream, Em was the Ben and Jerry's flavor "Everything But the Kitchen Sink". I'm plain vanilla.
I used to plead with mom and dad not to tell her they were going away. But somehow she always found out. She had some sort of radar or something. "Dorky sister, sitting at home. Must help".

I'm all alone. And I'm waiting for her to come bounding through the door, armed with doritios and soda, endless episodes of Friends DVD's, and whatever her latest "ic" of the week happened to be.

And every second that passes that the door stays closed, my heart breaks just a little more.

They weren't kidding when they say "alone" isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Oh how I miss her! Just when I think I'm starting to feel better, just when I think I really might have found the answer to "how high is up?" something comes along and sends me crashing right back to where I started! It's not FAIR!!! NOT FAIR NOT FAIR NOT FAIR!! I want to scream and cry and kick my heels against the ground and smash something into a million pieces. I want to shake my fist at God and tell Him just how royally ticked off I am! I want Emily back, I want to be employed, I don't want to be alone, and I want things to be back to the way they were. And I don't want to feel this alone anymore.

It sort of worries me that I no longer like being alone. I'll never be able to live by myself. I'll be the crazy woman with 50 cats or something. With lace doilies on the armchairs, knitting strewn everywhere and a house that smells like peppermint. You know, to cover up the cat box smell.
(And right now my parents are praying that this peppermint smelling house of cats is far, far, away. Can't blame them. Who wants to be known as the parents of the town's Crazy Cat Woman?)

Am I ranting? Why yes, I do believe I am. Better than exploding I suppose.

I guess the silver lining in this whole being laid off thing is that now that I have time in abundance, I'll soon be on my way to join the rest of my family at the beach. The best antidote for driving yourself crazy is to instead be driven crazy by your wonderfully insane family. And I say that in the most loving of ways. :)

Because seriously, another week of this alone crap would send me to the looney bin. After re-reading some of this, I think I may be halfway there.

But I do feel better after "throwing up" a little on here.

Now I'm just debating about whether to publish this, or keep it hidden in the drafts folder.

hmm....

Oh what the heck. Everyone knows I'm nuts anyway. Why hide it? ;)