Table for One.

The holiday season is pretty much upon us, and it's actually the first one in AGES that I don't have...how do I put it...a love interest. For the last ten years of my life there has been someone -- even if not a real relationship then at least someone I fancied -- and now, there is no one. It's so weird. I get to go to all these end-of-year functions, parties, dinners, whatever, all by myself.

Over the weekend I had a taste of the true solo adventure. Sunday morning I called one of my friends to see if she still planned on joining me at the Charleston Cup, the local horse race that my office got a bunch of tickets for. But she and her boyfriend declined. They'd been out late the night before and I realized I had to make the 30 minute trek to Hollywood (SC, not CA) on my own.

So I did. And the drive was pleasant. And the horse race was fun. I guess it's a little odd to be my only companion --my own driver, walking buddy...and the only person who pays for my parking pass. The funny thing about being single is that, even though I have gobs of friends, the feeling of being alone is always there because no one is obligated to you. Or, as a friend put it the other night, "No one cares if you stub your toe. Sure, you can call a girlfriend on the phone, but no one REALLY cares."

Whether that is a dismal, or freeing, prospect depends largely on the attitude one chooses to take, I've learned lately. I'm learning to embrace my freedom and not my loneliness. After all, if Robinson Crusoe and Henry David Thoreau and Emily Dickinson could do it, why not Denise K. James?

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