Home Alone

It is late, (around 10pm to be precise! Although not too close just yet to the time I usually surrender to sweet slumber) my parents have gone to sleep so in a sense, I am alone. All you can hear is the soft hum of the heater as it circulates warmth through our aging home and the tick-tock of my horse alarm clock as it dutifully warns me of each passing hour.

I decided there are two sides to being alone in one's house. The first is the joy of having the absolute freedom to do whatever you like because no one is there to have a different opinion and stop you (such as eating the last of the mint chip ice cream straight out of the carton or blasting Elvis Presley through the entire house...). Having the house all to yourself you are free to roam the halls, watch movies the rest of your family find extremely annoying and cry/laugh aloud shamelessly all the way through, or one of my favorites; read a book without interruption. The second though is the opposite of all these, being alone can stir a loneliness in your heart that is hard to shake (no matter how many Disney movies you watch and cartons of ice cream you down). You find yourself wandering through the house only to find empty rooms over and over again like something in an Alice In Wonderland movie... For me, I find that my senses tend to run suddenly into hyper-sonic mode (don't really know if that condition actually exists...) and every chirping bird is a burglar outside my door or any passing truck is a ginormous earth quake waiting to vibrate my house's humble foundation to rubble.

I haven't quite figured out the causes for each of these reactions... I think it is a matter of the time of day or of what I have occupied myself with at the time (obviously if I have seen an Alfred Hitchcock movie recently it would be the latter reaction) which is one fantastic reason why we need to follow Philippians 4:8 (Whatever is pure, right, and Holy...). It's amazing to me how God gives us verses that we read and then later there is a "hey! This suddenly makes (Jenette, I almost used "so" *gasp* the horror!) sense!" moment. Love those!

Goodnight! Tomorrow (or maybe even tonight if I'm feeling really zealous) I plan to write my response on Living Like Weasels... this could get ugly.