I am going to be in my house alone.

This is not an invitation to come party (or come rob me: I will have you know that I have a very fierce if kinda fluffy looking dog). It’s a preliminary celebration. I am so looking forward to this, and when it is over, I may be a little weepy. Rob is going out of town for a couple of nights, and I was invited to a reception at a local museum and thought, hell, drinks, small talk but drinks and an excuse to get a sitter…and then I took the whole thing one step further and persuaded to sitter to keep them all overnight and I am going to be alone.

I may not really go to that reception. I said I would, but, meh. I can always drink here, alone. Did I say alone? Alone!

I’m an only child. This probably doesn’t surprise anyone, given my general self-centeredness and inability to play well with others. I am an only child and I mostly liked being an only child, and when I finally reached a point in life when I could afford to live alone I did so happily for years. I like to be alone. I like to eat alone. I like to read alone. I like to sit in absolute, TV free silence reading old books I have read before and eating potato chips for dinner, alone.

And I get a night to do it in my very own house.

I am indecently excited. I just read this blog post from Suburban Bliss, wherein she was alone for a week, and I almost wept from envy–but she was on vacation. I may not get a week (a week!) but I do get to eat my chips on my own couch. (A week! Can you imagine the hoops I would have to jump through to achieve a week! Oh, suburban bliss, I DO envy you. I can’t pretend.)

Thinking about my upcoming treat is reminding me of the two apartments I lived in alone, in New York. The first was a summer sublet, and entirely inhabited by the belongings of an older Gramercy Park couple. I think they were shrinks, with a lot of very tasteful art from their travels, and they warned me not to ever take the subway anywhere ever, but only the bus. I didn’t listen, but I lived their apartment, which was close to Balducci’s and makes me think of all the things I saw and felt for the first time in New York, which is a fantastic city to be alone in.

The second was the top floor of a brownstone owned by a recently divorced woman who’d just come out of the closet and was so loving her freedom and her life that the whole building just pulsed with all the fun she was having. I loved that apartment and that block and that life.

I love this life, too. I love all these little kids and their forts and their friends. Today both Rory and Wyatt learned to ride their bikes without training wheels, all thanks to Daddy, and I love that, and him. I love everyone who needs me, and I love to be needed. But I will really love not being needed for just one night.