"Alone" in 2010

New Years Eve 2009 is most definitely one I will not forget.  It was a day that in no way turned out the way I would have planned it, but in no means would I have changed it. 

When the clock struck midnight, I had just parked my car at my apartment and was walking to the elevator.  Fireworks sound much different from a subterranean parking garage.   I had spent the previous hour and a half on work and not by choice, but we do the things we need to do when they need to be done.  Especially the important things. 

I dropped my stuff in my apartment and walked back downstairs and out the back door where I took a seat by the pool.  For the next 10 minutes and watched the fireworks explode over the Pacific Ocean, alone.

I watched them alone, but I in no means was lonely. 

Earlier in the evening I enjoyed a fantastic dinner with a girlfriend and her husband.  I had expected to have a date with me, but I should have known better then to count on this date to follow through.  3 out of 5 dates, have been cancelled last minute for no other reason then “being tired”.    (Yes, I get it now). 

On the way to dinner, I pointed out that it was a full moon.  My friend’s husband began to explain that not only was it a full moon, but it was actually a real “once in a blue moon”.  The moon we were looking at was the 2nd full moon in one month.  This rare accordance (which coined the blue moon phrase) won’t happen again until 2028.  I couldn’t think of a better way to start a new year…a new decade. 

At dinner I excused myself for a moment and when I walked back to the table I noticed a dime on the floor.  I walked about 3 steps past it and stopped.   I am one of those people who always pick up pennies.  There are very few that I walk past.  With a smile on my face I turned around and picked up the dime and said silently in my head, as I do with each penny I pick up, “Find a penny, pick it up, all that day you’ll have good luck”.   I thought of the possibility that here I was, picking up the equivalent of 10 pennies on the night that people all over the world are celebrating 2010 and how maybe, with the combination of the blue moon, it would bring me luck for the next 10 years.  I am keeping that coin for a little while. 

After numerous topics throughout the night, on the drive home the conversation led to how it really is true that you have to be completely comfortable and successful in a relationship with yourself before you will be successful in one with another person.  You have to be in the place with yourself where you are alone, but not lonely. 

I was alone on New Years Eve when the clock struck midnight.  But the truth is, I really enjoyed sitting on the side of the pool watching the fireworks by myself.  I had a blue moon, a lucky dime, fireworks and a smile on my face as I started my 2010.  And there is NOTHING lonely about that.