Pinball Wizard

So, I'm alone in Mexico. Just me. No kids. No husband. No family. Nobody. Me, my thoughts, and the quiet are all awkwardly sitting here together. I will be here a total of 18 days alone. I chose this. I chose it because I need it. I know I need it. It occurred to me when I was contemplating staying alone in a foreign country for a measly 2 1/2 weeks that I was terrified of it. I have never been alone for 18 days. Not at home. Not in another country. Not anywhere. I have always had kids or husbands or boyfriends or family around. Always. I went straight from my parent's house to a husband's house. Since then, I've bounced all around like a pinball bouncing off people like bumpers. When I would fall into the drain, I'd just bounce like the steel ball again into more bumpers. I've never stopped the game. I've always had people around. But, I chose to be alone for 2 1/2 weeks. I almost backed out. And facing my first full day alone here, I have had the urge more than once to hop a plane and go back to my people. I feel a pull toward my sons and I want to go to them. Just to hear them around me. Just to know they are there. But I need this. I need to be alone.

A friend told me to be careful. That being so alone could harm me. That I needed people to bounce off of right now. I disagreed. I have to be alone with just me, my thoughts, and the quiet. I have to sit here like this until it is no longer awkward. I have to sit here like this until it feels ok. I have been bouncing around for too long and I need to leave the ball in the machine and take a break. I have lived this life that seems impossible to explain. I have felt victimized far more than I feel is possible. Therapy, meetings, books, meditation, reflection, conversation; it's all been helpful but I am in a pinball machine under glass bouncing around the same obstacles over and over again. They have different names. Different faces. Different environments. Same obstacles. And it has to stop. I'm so tired.

So I am spending 18 days alone in Mexico. I don't know what I will do with it. I know I will not be drinking every day this time. I know I am not here to escape reality this time. I am here to soak in it. I am not here this time to find as much noise as possible like last time. I am here this time to quiet the noise and see what is under it. I need to find me. I need to contemplate the pinball board. I need to review the puzzle. It's not the first time I've done that, not by any means. I've contemplated more than most. But I haven't done it alone. Not truly alone. Not without the distraction of people. I hate being alone. And I need to figure out why. I need to face it down and figure out why my own company has always been my least favorite. I know, deep down, why. I know I don't want to face myself. To review, once again, my own mistakes and responsibilities in my story. I don't want to admit that I'm not as healed as I thought I was. I don't want to admit that I did not release myself from the pattern when I thought I had. I don't want to decide what I really want and how to get there. I don't want to talk to myself. I don't want to go through the work of it. But, I want the peace at the end. I want the calm, quiet, decisive end result. And I'll only get that, this time, alone. I know that the only thing I can and will talk to about anything meaningful is the ocean. And I can't run this time. I can't drug it or drown it or fuck it or laugh it away. I must feel it. I must.

So, here I am. Alone in Mexico. Contemplating the best way to feel it. Should I write about it? That always seems to help me the most. Writing it all down. Telling the story. Should I meditate? It calms me down and makes me empty. It is designed to do so. But will it be enough to get the answers I need. Should I do it with discipline and a set plan or should I let the tide take me as it decides to? Should I stop over thinking it or start over thinking it? I don't know. I'm just starting. The first thing I wanted to do was write. So I am. But maybe I just want to write to connect. To feel like I'm talking to people. Figurative. Unknown. People. But when I write, I am usually writing to myself. So maybe that is my version of talking to myself. I only share it afterward.

All I know is that I'm tired. And I feel lost. And I need to be alone. So I am. So today I will just congratulate myself on going through with it and not buying the plane ticket back to people. That is enough.