Home Alone.

It's Saturday morning, I have a cup of coffee in front of me, I woke up on my own accord with no alarm, and now, have a few minutes to sit and write.  This is the first Saturday I can think of, maybe all year? where I've been home with no real plans or agenda.  While the months of January and February are usually ones made for hibernation and down-time in the Northern Hemisphere; a slow start to the new year, I flew out of the gates into 2019 at a rather manic pace and haven't had a minute to pause.  All of it is with good reason - I rang in the New Year in Paris, then was up in Boston for a week before flying to Mexico for a handful of days.  There have been a handful of wonderful, wonderful friends who have come to visit me in the Big Apple, there have been work trips to Texas, family trips to Georgia, and even a visit back to my hometown in New Jersey in between. 

I should know by now (why am I always surprised?) that my schedule tends to work like this - packed to the gills without a minute to catch my breath and then, suddenly, not.  I've given up on the notion that one day it may all feel a bit more balanced, that there would be a steady stream of activity with a healthy dose of rest and recuperation sprinkled in among the crazy on a regular basis. Life just doesn't work that way.

I am, however, pretty grateful that this weekend ahead is a low-key one, where my ambitions are on mundane things like laundry and groceries and running errands; where the biggest to-do on my calendar is make it to a yoga or spin class.  It's time for the R&R piece of the puzzle and I am ready for it. 

And yet, it's a funny thing.

I can crave a weekend of down-time like mad, be desperate to protect my free-time and not make any commitments, but then when I get there, when I make it to those days of no plans, I panic.  Earlier this week I was talking to a friend about this strange phenomenon.  I don't mind solo time, I rather enjoy my own company, but there's an adjustment process that seems to have to occur each and every time I end up having time on my own with no agenda.  It's almost like you have to come down from the manic schedule, that one has to build up to being used to being alone again after weeks and weeks of whirlwind activity.  Once you settle into it and find the rhythm of adventuring solo you're in a groove.  But, at least for me, there's also a window where I feel a little lost, a touch anxious about suddenly having free time with me, myself, and I. Which is wonderful and what I've wanted but also...will I be lonely, will I feel left-out, will I wish someone would invite me out (but also please don't invite me out because I want to recharge my batteries and just be alone)? 

Snow, a good old fashioned major storm that grinds the city to a halt has been on my wish list for two years now.  Last winter I somehow managed to be out of town every single time Boston got hit with a storm and this winter the snow has been paltry, hardly anything.  Along with the idea of seeing Manhattan and Central Park blanketed in snow - which would be a first for me - I know one of the reasons I love snow days is that the really good storms, the best of the best, keep us all inside, hunkered down with no place to go, all plans canceled.  There is solidarity in that.  We're alone, but together.

There is no snow in the forecast this weekend.  Rain, maybe.  So all of Manhattan won't be housebound this weekend.  But I've got a list of things to do, a bevvy of neglected chores, a book I can't put down, and the Oscars on Sunday night. 

Sounds like the perfect weekend to me, actually.