Being idle used to make me so antsy. When I didn't have enough assignments to keep me busy or enough companionship to keep me entertained, I used to interpret this as boredom and loneliness. I used to wonder why that gig went to another writer or how come I don't have a big, catty gaggle of friends who look just like me to talk ad nauseam about absolutely nothing significant with like almost everyone else on the planet. Now I've learned when things quiet down, that this is actually what peace is. Sure, I love the adrenalin of a tight deadline, the sense of importance and value in being busy. I love long talks with old friends and the buzzy bonhomie of that increasingly rarefied thing called good company. But there are so many ways I've been hurt jammin' on a last-minute project that didn't get enough gratitude or from finding a duplicitous Judas in my tribe. And being at home alone with no obligations and no one to kick it with nearly broke me during the pandemic lockdown, and I'm a confirmed loner. But now, as hard as it can be sometimes to sit still until the next assignment comes along or the next friend is in town, I've learned to appreciate these moments where I'm not being burnt or hurt. I have a very high stimulation threshold -- I get bored extremely easily; and I don't have a lot to say to most people -- I'm one part deadly-serious and another part, sadly, probably the funniest person I know -- so even when I'm in the social mix of things I'm still hardly ever fully present. There's probably a disorder in the DSM that I'm describing right now that I just haven't been diagnosed with yet.😅 Either way, at this superannuated point my life, I've learned to appreciate the quiet times. You don't have to drink them away, you don't have to fuck randos them away, you don't have to shop them away. Because, eventually, they will go away and you'll find yourself somewhere doing something or someone you don't feel like doing and wishing nothing more than that you were at home in your pajamas in the middle of the day reading your favorite mystery writer's latest and eating potato chips all alone.
