Alone vs alone

I'm feeling alone again tonight.

It's rare that I feel alone. I like solitude and I pretty much enjoy my private time every night, so much that I'm almost always reluctant to go to sleep. I stay up till the wee hours, until I feel it's ridiculous to stay up any later, and "ridiculous" gets a new definition each time.

But being alone is very different from feeling alone. I feel alone now.

The clock reads 4.24am. I've turned off my music, so it's silent, save for the tap tap tapping of my keyboard. I realise how quiet it is, not because there is no sound, but because there is no one to talk to.

My MSN regulars are not there, so no solace online.

Kelvin is asleep, and had gone to bed on a rather unsatisfactory note. We had hardly spoken all day, and after getting home from a very long night of rehearsal, I was really looking forward to our nightly chat. But the moment I heard his voice over the phone, I knew he was sleepy and in no mood to even listen, let alone talk. Unhappily, I let him get his snooze. So that end is silent.

Can't call my sister, as our conversations are never short, and I have to be up in 6 hours (Her Majesty wants me to drive and escort her around again today).

lus I’m having PMS, and progesterone alone would be a very good reason for me to feel the need for Prozac and Lithium right now.

I’m lonely, and it’s too quiet.

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Her Majesty ticked me off AGAIN for staying up late. Which is reasonable for any parent to do...provided there is a good reason to, and provided the child is actually still a child. Week after week after week of pulling out the same irritating excuses:

1) "You're wasting electricity." This is coming from the woman who cannot get by without airconditioning and sleeps with it at full blast while wearing a thick sweater and scarf. Go figure.

2) "You're being so unfilial." Go figure too.

3) "You wake up your parents." This is the woman who, from childhood, wakes up several times a night to visit the john, with or without my help. My dad has absolutely no trouble falling asleep.

4) "It's abnormal." This sounds almost reasonable, until you consider that she's a person who wants EVERYTHING exactly how she thinks it ought to be in her perfect little world. Normal is when everyone does exactly what she wants and thinks exactly what she wants them to.

Take the above 4, throw them together into a Guilt Remix, and then hit the "repeat" button. You will also need "variations on a theme" and “self-gratifying monologue” options. There, now you’re ready to be my mother. It occurred to me that she's given up the old "You won't get enough sleep" excuse because she finally wised up to the fact that it doesn't work on me. After using it for about a decade, of course. Which explains why, after using the abovementioned remix for months, she still hasn't understood why I'm still being the bad girl staying up late and being such a disobedient, unfilial daughter. The bad daughter who does her bidding almost all the time, not only drives her around but accompanies her to most of her week’s errands, just-feel-like-being-out, and so on.

I've been contemplating telling her this when next she berates me for my sleeping hours: "From now, for every time you say all this again, I will go to bed one hour later." I wonder how ugly that scene would be. Very ugly.