Serendipity

I didn't expect Easter Sunday to mean anything this year. I'm not religious at all. In previous years I used it as an excuse to throw an ironic dinner party (ie, 'Jesus is a Zombie Party' of 2007). This year, my family was spending the weekend at my brother's house in North Carolina and I had no plans whatsoever.

Easter morning I was tired and slightly hungover from going out the night before. I was laying in bed unsure what to do with my day and suddenly I was overwhelmed with this awful feeling and it took me a moment to recognize what it was. I was lonely.

The loneliness seemed so sudden, out of nowhere. I sat in my room for a long time, listening to music a little too loud. I smiled at myself when this song came on and I realized that, at thirty years old, I still identify with Smiths lyrics and still default to being a hermit.

"Ask"


I've decided to force myself out of the house more. Something always happens, never quite as I imagined, but usually good. That's the magic of serendipity. Happy, unexpected things. Like taking myself out to breakfast that Easter morning and deciding to get a meal "for here" instead of "to go." And sitting alone by the window, sipping coffee, suddenly inspired to write poems about birds on the back of my grocery list. And then glancing out the window and spotting old friends walking down the sidewalk. And then running outside to invite them to sit with me. You can't plan these kinds of things. You just show up and let them happen.

I bought myself a raspberry Charlotte and a new journal to celebrate my non-denominational it-just-so-happens-to-be-Easter resurrection. I glued my bird poems on page one and ate the Charlotte in bed with a fork.