Sleeping Alone

What exactly is a vacation? I never referred to my not-as-recent-anymore sojourn abroad as a vacation, because I associate a vacation with lying on a tropical beach or sitting on a dock and drinking beer. That wasn't the nature of my "vacation." But I guess I did vacate in one way or another.

So what did I vacate? My home? My mundane obligations and responsibilities? My home, for sure. But I certainly remained responsible. I had to. Getting around in a foreign land where you don't speak the language requires being very responsible. In fact, it's a lot easier for me to vacate at home with a glass of wine and some herbal refreshment, especially when I'm feeling over-burdened with the ordinary duties required to get through life. And it's a real no-brainer to point out that the more one indulges in that mode of vacating, the more one is vacant.

I'm going on about all this because the longer I was away from home, where everything is familiar and frequently ordinary, the more I became aware that I wasn't on what I consider to be a vacation at all. I came face to face with who I am on a daily basis, sometimes quite painfully.

When one is bleezed through substance abuse, that's a definite retreat from yourself. That's the exact opposite of looking at yourself in the mirror and seeing who you really are. And let's face it, people who go that route to vacate don't want to face themselves.

Okay. So I didn't go on a vacation. I went away. But the irony of all this is that the first week of my sojourn was actually a retreat. Yes, I went on a yoga retreat in a beautiful, bucolic part of the world and had signed myself up to share accommodations with a stranger for six nights. The stranger I'd been booked to share a capacious, zen-like room with was a fellow practitioner of yoga, and therefore it should have been easy to live amicably together. And it no doubt would have been if I didn't snore like a chain saw. (A friend and former co-habitator once described my snoring that way.) Anyway, the very fine lady I shared the very fine accommodations with the first night didn't get a wink of sleep. I don't think she would have said anything to me, because I know she didn't want to hurt my feelings, but I asked her the next morning how she slept, and she very wisely decided to tell me the truth. According to her I snore like a sailor. Sheesh.

Anyway, I could see she was genuinely exhausted from lack of sleep, and everyone else on the retreat noticed it too. She discreetly shared her dilemma with the director of the retreat, as well as a close confidant, and was quickly supplied a pair of ear plugs for the week. I caught wind of all this within a couple of hours, because we were a small, cloistered group of people, and I felt an unmistakable "vibe" going around the place, even though everyone was being so polite and treading lightly around me. But I'm sensitive enough to have caught on. Anyway, I ended up requesting a room of my own, at my own expense, so that my bleary-eyed roommate wouldn't go sleepless for the rest of the week. It was the right thing to do. The only problem was I felt so embarrassed, so humiliated. A circus freak.

So why am I telling this sad little story? Because this sorry little incident only confirmed what I've know for a very long time now - I'm meant to be alone and to sleep alone. I'm a spinster, and most of the time proud of it. (But I'm not too keen on the snoring stereotype.) Anyway, if that means in order to keep other people from sharing my life, my home, and my bed, that I must snore whilst I sleep, well then, so be it.

The only reason I'm able to publicly share this awkward confession is that it proves, at least to me, that everything happens for a reason. My raucous, night-time, nasal noises guarantee that I will never share my sleeping quarters with anyone ever again. That's not just happenstance to me. It fits the pattern of my life. It makes perfect sense.

Laugh or sneer if you want. It's who I am.

I faced these hard facts on a retreat. On a putative vacation. I learned that I can vacate my domicile, and even the mundane order of my ordinary life. I can retreat from the rest of the world, but not from myself.

So there it is. The woman I see in the mirror on a daily basis is a spinster who snores.

- G.P.