Alone

​Alone
There comes a time when everyone has gone home.  Visitors have said their good-byes.  Kids have been packed into the car.  They have been waved off, tooting the car horn as they go.
Now is the time the real me is revealed.  There is no doubt I can look like what I am not with the best of them.  I can appear like I have it all together.   The impression I give is one of a person to be like.  “I can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but I can not fool all of the people all of the time.”  I definitely cannot fool me, but it does not stop me trying.  Still, appearing all together is preferred to appearing to be a blubbering idiot. 
But what am I like when no-one is around?  For me so much hangs on how I respond to that.
For me, there are a couple of types of alone time.  There is no doubt I need it.  Not all the time, but sometimes.  I need to recharge my batteries.  To work things out.  Bit like sleep I suppose.  They reckon the brain sorts things out when we sleep.  Too much alone time and I lose the ability to relate to people, and not enough alone time and I burn out.  It can all become too much. 
I guess that is why I enjoy my day off.  A day without commitments.  A day to veg or work or both.  A day without others expecting things from me.
Yet I do feel alone time reveals the real me.  Is who I am for others a show to impress or does it carry on when I am by myself?  To everything there may be a season but running amok is not a season.  I definitely need to relax, but that does not include getting out of it.
To me a little is fine (as long as it is legal and ok for me), but a lot invariably leads to excess.  Time and again I hear stories of things going too far.  What starts well enough, ends badly.
We saw that on holidays.  We were in a shop about 9.30am and a guy came off his push bike on the footpath.  He did himself enough damage to need an ambulance.  He had a backpack.  He complained it was leaking.  Merril helped him.  Turned out it was a can of booze that was leaking.  What may have started well for him ended badly.
So often doing the best thing is a door that looks bland, while running amok is a door that looks enticing.  But the door does not necessarily tell the story.  What may look bland can be exciting, while what looks enticing can be bland.  Only when I open the door do I find out.
I have discovered that no matter which door I open there is a price.  Through the bland door there are beautiful places, but there are also mountains to walk up, while through the enticing door I easily loose my footing.