One's Own Company

  I have heard it said as I suppose many others have heard it said that you can't be happy with another person until you really like yourself. I think a very good test of this theory is to live on your own, that is without family and without flat mates. I have lived in various accommodations in my time by myself but never in a fully fledged and functioning home had I truly lived alone until August of 2014.

 I live in the same flat now as I lived in last year but this year I live in it without company. Last year I had the pleasure of two of Ireland's finest to share my living space with and when I returned to Spain after the summer holiday to the large, empty space I did find myself feeling a little bit lonely. Musings such as:

 What will I do with all of these rooms?

It's very quiet.
I haven't spoken to a soul all day.

Quickly turned into other musings along the lines of:

 I have a lot of fridge space now.

 I can have guests galore from home.

 It doesn't matter how loud I have my music.

  I will admit to finding myself quite pleased with the notion of living alone. Granted, it comes with a price. The bills are higher which leaves me with a little less cash and sole responsibility of the wi-fi, but I get over this when I realise that I have not one but two dining tables to choose from, a large TV at my disposal and a spare desk that I don't use often but do occasionally find use for. I also have 2 bathrooms. This means one bathroom for my own personal use and the other bathroom for flushing away cockroaches and dirty water from the mop bucket. It's really quite amazing how I have been able to utilise all of the space in a place where I only used to have 1 cupboard shelf, 1 fridge shelf, half a bathroom and 1 bedroom. I would now find myself feeling quite deprived if I didn't have an entire room which has one use and that is to dry the laundry because I don't want to have to look at it in the living room when I'm watching Coronation Street (now minus Deidre Barlow).

  Living alone has helped me to change my mind about my own company. I don’t need a person in a room down the corridor anymore because I do just fine by myself. I don't need to know someone else is coming and going around me because not having someone else coming and going around me makes me want to come and go myself. I am significantly busier now that I live alone than I was before. I also enjoy taking responsibility for doing all of the cleaning and I feel happy in the knowledge that the floors will sparkle until I do something to make them unsparkle and then I don't have to wait for someone else to sparkle them up again because I am entirely responsibility for the sparkliness of my own floor. There's no tension as regards to the cleaning of my environment because I'm the only one who's going to be doing it anyway and I find myself feeling quite proud of that. Almost like a proper grown up!

  It's nice to live in your own company, it's nice to have space you can call your own and it's a relief to embrace and enjoy the peace and tranquillity which once made you nervous. It's as lovely to open the door to your own place after a long day and stick the kettle on as it is to open the door to friends after languishing in the bath on a rainy Saturday whilst reading something witty. Today, or indeed this week in actual fact is just one of those weeks when my world feels right. Everything is all slotted into its rightful place. There are portions of homemade soup and Bolognese in the fridge, the dishes are all tidy in the cupboards, the washing is done and put away, Mr Muscle has done his best on the work surfaces, the mirrors are shiny, the admin for work was completed and forgotten about last week and alls I need to do is to sit back, relax and enjoy the equilibrium I have created for myself with a nice cup of coffee and nutrition filled strawberry. I'm not saying I have such an organised life every week, but this week I do and I'm making the most of it.