Enjoying Your Own Company
Most of the guys who live around here are handymen.. From painters to bricklayers and the like, this time of the year is the time when they get the most jobs because people travelling down from other parts of the country and the world want their houses in the village to be repainted, rebuilt, and the like.
So for the past few weeks, it's been really quiet and lonely around here with everyone gone every day, and due to this, I found myself getting used to the loneliness to the extent where I rarely come out at night to sit with them when they come back at night.
And at first it was a bit of a struggle because everything happened so quickly, from them going out barely three times a week to them going out even on Sundays due to how packed their schedules are. But after the second week, I began to adjust; going for the stressful NYSC registration also helped me because there were days when I would leave in the morning and also come back at night, too tired to do anything else other than to eat and sleep.
The problem with that now is a friend of mine who would always visit me on his off days from work, or I would visit him to hang out, has been trying to come hang out for a while now, but due to the fact that my brain and body have adjusted back to being alone, I find myself giving him one excuse or the other.
At first, I started with the truth, telling him how I truly felt, how I didn't feel like talking and just wanted to be indoors. But then, as time went on, it started to feel like giving him the same excuse over and over again was me avoiding him, when in reality I was avoiding everyone and was now enjoying my own company.
I kept giving him excuses for more than three weeks, and when I finally ran out of things to say and finally agreed for him to come around, we both ended up taking a long nap because we both weren't saying anything to each other, or I just wasn't responding the way I normally would.
He hasn't been here or asked to come around since then. He probably is waiting for me to come visit, something I don't see happening in the near future. My body has gone back to its original factory reset system, and I think I like it here.