Icy a Lovely Day Ahead.

About six months ago, during a tumultuous time in California, I was shopping with my friends in Downtown LA and I stumbled across a journal.

I’m a writer, and aside from writing on my blog, I keep a personal journal, of which I’m now on my 50th. So when I come across a book with empty lines just waiting for my pen to dance her way through them, I often buy them.

I’ve come across many stylish journals in my lifetime, but this particular journal caught my eye. It was unique in the fact that it was titled, and the title was The Five Minute Journal.

I have a tendency to stay away from prompted journals, but this simple plain cover enticed me to flip through its pages and take a look within.

At the time, I was going through some rough patches with a particular boy of mine and needed something, anything , to help me through it.

It appeared as if this journal was the answer.

Basically, I answered questions within the journal once in the morning and then once at night, per the instructions. The questions were simple, but they forced me to think on the positive elements of my day. The idea was that by consistently writing in this journal everyday, I would find myself creating new habits that allowed me to reflect upon my routine from a positive perspective.

Which ultimately increases happiness.

Even though I have long since finished the journal (it doesn’t take me that long), I found that a new mental habit had been created from this diary.

And yesterday, a perfect example of this presented itself.

I was at work, training one of the new girls at the coffee shop, and I had the misfortune of experiencing one of the most brash and churlish customers.  She came in with a discourteous air and proceeded to dig herself into a deeper hole of negativity despite my efforts at treating her with kindness and respect.

I had been having a good day before that, actually meeting one of the most complimentary and appreciative customers and yet when I settled in for the night, this lady’s ridiculous behavior still boiled angrily in my thoughts.

How is it that we can be having the most happy go lucky of days and yet when we think back on how the day went, we remember the one negative experience that stung us the most?

It’s like we only focus on the bad despite a lot of good actually happening. What is it about our brain that allows us to think like that?

It reminds me of a rupi kaur quote:

i hear a thousand kind words about me

and it makes no difference

yet i hear one insult

and all confidence shatters.

-focusing on the negative

The answer lies in the sentence above: focusing.

We choose to let the negativities reside in our thoughts at the end of the day and we choose to believe that they are what determine how our day went.

I know it’s easy for me to sit here and say choose to focus on the positive when in reality, it’s a lot harder to do, but in my experience, making a conscious effort each and every day to write about gratitude, affirmation, goal setting, and positive events that occurred really do start to change your perspective for the better.

Of course there will still be days ahead in which I can’t help but stew in my feelings of despair, but they won’t outweigh the fact that most of my days will be good.

Because while every day may not be a good day, there is good in every day.

With that, I start my day, and icy a lovely day ahead…

Table For One.

The other day, I had to utter the very words I grew up dreading.

Despite being single my entire life, few occasions have required me to muster these words and even though I’m accepting the fact that I’m still single, it nonetheless breaks my heart a little to have to say them out loud, some 23 years later.  

Hostess: How many in your party?

Me: One. I need a table for one.

Sooooo dramatic, I know, but if anyone has ever been single like me (surely I can’t be the only one) you’ll resonate with the fact that stating that status does, indeed, feel a little depressing.

Walking through the restaurant, I feel like everyone is staring, wondering if they think the other member of my party is coming in later. Only after the hostess clears the other place at my table do I think people finally understand that I’m purposefully choosing to dine alone.

With no one to look at across from me at the table, I often fluster as to what to do with my roaming eyes. A lot of times, I have the urge to whip out my journal from my bag and dive headfirst into its pages, but even I know that it’s not proper to do at a fine dining establishment, despite having seen it done before.

Instead, I take a deep breath and sip my wine. Taking this opportunity, I look at the other diners around me, often catching their eye as they attempt to look anywhere but at me and my pitiful arrangement for one.

There’s two ways the rest of this dinner could go.

One, I could choose to succumb to the stigma that it’s sad for a girl to be dining alone. I could continue to torture myself by comparing the number in my party to the cute couple beside me, wondering if I’ll ever get to be that girl. I could let everyone’s eyes fuel me into thinking that they’re all silently judging me, even though they’re probably just curious as to why I’m alone and more concerned with the preparation of their steaks.

Or two, I could embrace the idea that a striking woman like myself is dining alone. I could evoke mystery and wonder in my fellow patron’s imaginations, smiling coyly like I have this secret that only my single self knows. I could make dining alone look good.

Hell, I know I make dining alone look good.

So why do I still care what other people think of me when I choose to sit at a table for two as a table for one?

I care because I let it.

I’ve grown up believing the messages around me telling me that dining alone is saved for sad spinsters. And I let those messages control how I felt and currently feel about dining alone.

I don’t know what it feels like to make dates with a lover and slurp oysters on Valentine’s Day. Save for the many one and done dates I had that did not go anywhere, I grew up comfortable in my single status.

That’s all I’ve ever really known, and this is an opportune time for me to stand up and announce that it is perfectly and socially acceptable to go out and sit a table for one. I have the advantage here because I’m choosing to redefine what it means for a woman to dine alone.

It’s not sad, it’s not for spinsters, and it’s not a situation that warrants condescending glances.

And while it’s not something I choose to do, but instead done out of circumstance, it’s something I can choose to embrace and celebrate.

Dining alone is liberating, it’s empowering, and it’s embracing your status and showing the world that you’re perfectly comfortable and at ease in your own company. The more I let those societal messages seep into my being, the more I let people tell me that dining alone is depressing, the more desire I have to fight like hell to get distance from that pressure and prove them all wrong.

I would love to someday tell the hostess that I’m looking for a table for two. I look forward to the evening I’ll get to be that girl I so often see out and about with her date, but I’m not going to let that future thought stop me from enjoying my company.

In the time being, I’ll sit primly at my white tablecloth and smile at the one lone rose at my table.

A reminder that I “rose” above the perceived awkwardness of dining alone. That I’ll enjoy my meal, regardless of the number of diners at my table.