A user’s guide to living:
Someone very clever once wrote: Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans. Or, maybe it was: Life is what happens when you’re looking the other way.
Or, it might have been: Life is what happens.
Actually, I wrote that last part.
It’s been a long time since I last posted a blog, a long time since I wrote about waking up alive. I kept thinking I’d get around to it. And then half a year whizzed by. In terms of living I feel as if I’ve only lived half of the first-half I had, and I wish I had twice as much left for the last half.
I am morbidly fascinated by tales from the Victorian era, of people being falsely diagnosed as dead, so much so that many insisted upon being buried with a rope in the coffin attached to a bell above ground. In case they woke up alive. Hopefully also with brandy, a candle, and a good book to pass the time until the exhumation.
Premature burial practices continue to this day. “I’m buried under work.” “I’m swamped.” “There’s no time.”
“One day, in my next life, I’ll live the life I want now.”
It isn’t easy for the introvert. My favourite thing to do? Stay home and wonder why I never go anywhere. (Having already declined to go anywhere.)
How do two introverts have a good time? Make elaborate plans to get together and see who can be the first to cancel at the last minute. It’s an art form. No self respecting introvert cancels plans ahead of time. The challenge is in getting down to the last few seconds before cancelling, knowing that the other person has been sitting at home in pajamas with ice cream and Netflix primed. We then immediately make elaborate plans for the next week. And so on.
Fabulous conversation between introverts:
Me: I didn’t go to the thing last night.
Friend: No? I didn’t go to the thing either!
Me: Did you go to the thing this afternoon?
Friend: No, I didn’t get to that thing either! Did you?
Me: No! That’s why I love you! We have so much in common!
Friend: Let’s make a date to not go to something together!
Me: I’m not sure. I’ve got a busy week coming up. So many things I’m not doing.
Welcome to the Summer Solstice. Alone with you together. Write like a banshee. Live like a crone. Ring that bell.
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