25 Blessings to Being Alone or The anti -Valentines Day List for Lonely People

Today is Valentine's Day. I have no romantic significant other that I can write swoony Facebook posts about, or swoony blog posts about, or swoony twitter posts about. There's no swoony anyone in my life. That could make me bitter, the fact that even though I was married for twenty years, I have never experienced real love. That could be a whole other depressing post, but that's not what I'm going to do because who wants to read that? So instead, I'm going to list all the wonderful things about being single. So all you single ladies (and men), there is much to celebrate about being alone.

Here we go...

1. You get the whole bed to yourself! No one steals the covers. No one shoves you to the edge so that you're having dreams of clinging to the side of a cliff. No one is snoring in your ear. No one is calling out the name of some other woman in his sleep. You don't get accidently hit in the face. You can sleep sideways, upside down, and diagonally. No one is going to wake you up accusing you of snoring.

2. If you want to read, watch tv, eat, or have a tea party in your bed, you can without bothering anyone else.

3. You can play any kind of music that you want at any time without anyone making sneering comments about your taste. You can mix it up and play opera one moment, Dolly Parton the next, and have Frank Sinatra and Abba back to back followed by an ACDC polka. If you want to play Christmas music in February you can.

4. You can leave the Christmas tree up, leave your sewing all over the kitchen table, not wash the dishes right away, and always know which towel is yours.

5. When you buy something, you don't have to sneak it into the house or hide it or explain how and where it came from or how much it cost or why you could possibly need one more of those things when you already have more than you can use.

6. You get to make all the decisions about your finances. No asking anyone else. (Note- make sure you pay the bills first so you have some place to sleep at night).

7. You can stay out late, come home late, sleep in late, or not come home at all. If you go on a day trip you can decide to extend it to a night trip a weekend trip or a month long excursion without calling to get permission from anyone (although you might want to let your employer know that you won't be in).

8. You can go on vacation without consulting anyone about anything or have a debate about where you're going or have to settle it by sticking options in a hat or having your mother-in-law decide.

9. You can sing and dance with great abandon even if you sound like a dying seal and dance like...like...like a dying seal.

10. You can decorate any way you want. If you like florals and checks and dolls and books, you can do that. If you want to put a motorcycle in your living room, you can do that. If you like the look of funky 60's or country chickens or both at the same time, then you can go for it. If you want to stick Elvis posters all over the walls and display your collections of trolls, pez dispensers, and Star Trek memorabilia then no one will object.

11. If you are a minimalist you don't have to put up with someone else's junk.

12. If you are a collector you don't have to put up with the complaints from a minimalist or worse, their sudden desire to throw out all your collectibles.

13. You'll never hear "are you coming to bed yet?" Like you have a bed time imposed by someone else.

14. When you put something down, it will be there when you get back - unless the Borrowers took it.

15. No one eats your food but you. That includes your leftovers that you carefully saved from your restaurant dinner, the chocolate you have stashed away, and the box of cookies that is yours all yours.

15. You don't have to deal with football games, hockey games, or golf on tv - unless you like that stuff.

17. You watch what you want to watch when you want to watch it and you control the remote. So

marathons of I Love Lucy or Supernatural, or Star Trek just require popcorn without the bored sighs coming from across the room.

18. There is no one to scream at you, criticize you, or put you down. Besides, you can do that very well to yourself.

19. You don't have to clean up someone else's mess, or live in someone else's mess. The mess is all your own. You can happily live in your own mess.

20. The only people in your house are the people that you invite in. So no weird friends. No creepy people. No one that drives you crazy. Well, except if that's how anyone would characterize you.

21. You can eat what you want. Sure, you have to make it yourself, but at least you're not faced with a plate of liver and onions, or a Spam casserole, ever.

22. When you have conversations with yourself you can be supportive and encouraging and tell yourself how wonderful you are. 23. You don't have to hide your voodoo dolls.

24. You don't have to explain why you still have all your Donny Osmond, David Cassidy, or Bay City Rollers records.

25. You can choose to pretend that Valentines Day doesn't exist and never existed and will never ever exist until you find someone to be all swoony about.