Alone - In the House

I have been alone in the house since yesterday since the whole family is in India. Its been a long time since I have been alone all by myself. The last time I stayed alonel was almost two years back when I did not have a roommate for a month. Before that I was left alone at home while my family in India went for a much deserved vacation. I did not go because I had my exams during those days.

So from the last time I was all my myself and today, it’s been a long time. Too long to adjust to being alone. It can get lonely sometimes. Feeling lonely even with people around you is a different matter. I feel that many times. I have felt that since I was a kid and I still feel it sometimes. But I have my ways to get out from that loneliness.

Living alone gives you a sense of being independent and being answerable to no one but then it comes with its own sense of responsibilities. The dishes have to be washed, the room/s have to be clean, the food has to be cooked, the clothes have to be washed/ironed and a lot more things. I have been doing that even when the family was there but now it seems different somehow. I was not told that time and I am not told now. Yesterday, I spent almost 3 hours washing and cleaning the kitchen. It was too much of an effort but I guess the place has to be maintained to keep up to a level where it requires minimum efforts to clean up.

When I stayed alone two years back, I had a big 2 bedroom apartment all to myself. I stayed in this big double bed bedroom and that was the time I did not even have a laptop or internet. I only had the television to spend my time. There is something about having wooden floors. When you walk on them, they make big noises. Even the wooden floors in neighbor’s house could create a sound as if someone is moving in the house.

I found myself waking in the middle of the night and walking across the house to find out if I had an intruder in the house. What greeted me was the eerie silence of the house. I would end up keeping myself awake and then watching TV in the middle of the night. Watching TV in the middle of the night at any volume without disturbing anyone is one of the advantages of staying alone. While there is nothing to watch on television at 2:00 AM in the night is a major disadvantage of staying awake at such a late hour. So I would spend time watching the “Reduce your tummy” ads on the television or watch the news of some war on the BBC or CNN till my eyes became heavy with sleep again.

The best remedy would be to tire yourself so much that you fall asleep the moment you hit the bed and no noise except the alarm clock would wake you up. Now I have a laptop and an Internet connection. So watching television at 2:00 AM is not the only option now. However the sounds still exist. Yesterday I woke up in the middle of the night to hear strange noises only to realize later that it was my stomach making the noise. I need to control my diet.

I currently live in a big house. My room is at the ground floor while there are still 3 floors above me. The house can get really quite and a small squeak is amplified to become a noise. When the family was here, I knew they moved in the house but now when I hear noises of someone moving, I freeze. Even if someone moves in the neighboring house, it feels like somebody is moving in our house. The wood makes a lot of difference here. I close my room door and dare not move above. Call me scarred or paranoid or coward, I have seen many horror movies and learned NOT to move alone in a big house. I have become very clever, sometimes.

Living alone sometimes has its advantage too. When I was living alone in Mumbai and juggling my college with my house chores, my neighbors were kind enough to send me food everyday. Sometimes I had so much food that some of it was wasted but the gesture was always good for me. Now here when I am alone, I have already got two invitations for dinner tonight. I went to to “Y” house tonight for dinner. The menu was samosas, fried rice and spicy patatos. That means no cleaning dishes and no cooking today. Friends do take pity on you when your family is away.

Staying alone is not totally alone I guess!