JOMO – The Joy of Missing Out

This January was the longest year I can remember. But fortunately for me, I eliminated some of the travail, by basking in milquetoast Oregon weather all last week.

Why?

Because I’ve been demoted to looking after three dogs instead of my usual gig of babysitting a cat in Honolulu. 

Well…there used to be two cats, but one jumped off the 11th floor balcony. 

Hmmm, you say, maybe that’s why you lost your gig.  

Noooo…he jumped of its own accord. It had nothing to do with me. Just ask the doorman who found him in the bushes. I was in a taxi by that time. 

The minute I arrived in Oregon, I turned technology off.

The reason.

To experience JOMO – The Joy of Missing Out

It was euphoric.

I watched snow drops drift down, sun shadows move, and clouds change. I made a imaginary quilt, listened to birds singing at the feeder outside my window, watched a cactus grow, and never once wondered about Facebook and Instagram posts. 

Emphatic, unhurried. Laudable. Uncharacteristically laconic. Slowly dismantling my obsession with productivity.

And all in comfortable pants.

There were no pings. No binge watching Season 6 Grace and Frankie. No copper mining. And no phone calls.

Not that there were any. I checked.

Yup, I was just a low maintenance introvert one long beard away from being a complete hermit. A party of one.

I am now at the age of knowing that “No One Really Cares What You Had for Dinner”. Essentially being ignored and unnoticed.

Also called being over 50. 

Although it might have been helpful if I hadn’t followed the skin care rules of the ‘60’s – baby oil and tinfoil, and eaten less Cheez Whiz on white bread. I also would have liked to have learned how to keep chairs from wobbling a little earlier on in life.

Although I’m gratefully on the other side of 50, I actually feel 37. It’s the age I identify with, feeling like a young woman with something really wrong with me. But that’s another story.

But I do have to tell you that one of the greatest things I learned over the week, was the flattering illusion that I am really quite an easy person to live with. You can ask anyone here. 

Yea, we live in a time where our dearest, maybe our only, constant companion, is our cell phone. We have it while eating, with friends, exercising in the gym, dog walking, at a concert, breastfeeding, during sex, cleaning toilets…the list goes on. Although the dark truth is, it has become very hard to find anyone (and certainly anything), more interesting than one’s own smartphone.

I mean, it’s not a sign of a problem when the first thing we look at in the morning and the last thing we touch at night is our phone.

Yup, just piling my help and goodness all over everybody. That’s just the kind of person I am.

Maybe cell phones should come with a label from the Surgeon General. Warning: Extensive cellular use causes addiction, mass extinction of species, community breakdown, relationship problems, and extensive Amazon deliveries.

Houston, we have a problem.

t’s such a romantic idea, this solitude thing. Sans technology. Silence.

But yet every day we do all sorts of things to escape this ubiquitous dragon, this ultimate vulnerability, this potentially penetrating hum and bodily ache of being alone.

We become workaholics, consumerholics, religioholics, technoholics, volunteerholics, excerciseholics, chocoholics, kaleoholics – anything to mask the lonely desperation.

We humans have this need for deep connection, even if it’s only with our frozen dinner package, teary-eyed and whispering “Thank you, friend.” after reading the “Enjoy!” note at the end of the cooking instructions. 

Loneliness can scramble our thinking and make us afraid to reach out because who of us wants more rejection when we already have as much heartache as we can manage.
 

But being alone makes us develop our own point of view, giving us time for clear, critical thinking. Time to reflect and ponder, to sense and notice, of being on the cusp of something when we almost know what we feel. It’s unruly, but enduring.

Spending quality time with ourselves also allows us to curtail our gullibility – and not necessarily believe everything I write.

We need to learn to be comfortable being alone without disassociating ourselves from the world, making us more capable of intimacy when we get the opportunity.   When we are not lonely when alone, we have achieved the ultimate -– comfort and ease in solitude.  Yes, Cinderella, you can do it.

As for me, and if nothing else, I’m counting on this solitude thing to make me unaccountably alluring and elegant.