A Room Full of Strangers

Although I have shared that I have a new found appreciation for being single (and I do...) there are still some things I hate (a strong word, I know) about being single.  One of them I experienced tonight.  Tonight I went to pay my respects to a friend whose father had passed away.  After sitting in the parking lot for 20 minutes at the funeral home waiting for any familiar face to show up, I decided that it was time for me to stop sweating in the car, put my big girl pants on, and walk in....alone.  But truth be told, I HATE THAT!  There are times when even an extrovert like myself just hates being alone.  And walking into a room of people in which you know very few people can be so intimidating. Paying your respects is never easy, but it seems to me, it would be so much easier to walk into a room where you know very few people if you had someone to walk in with.  Then, despite the fact that you don't know many of the people at least the person you walked in with could talk to you.  So I walked in, paid my respects, talked briefly with my friend, then did what any self respecting single woman would do....I went and hid out in the bathroom for a little bit and waited for the rest of my friends to show up! This reminded me of when I was in a new high school and had no friends and I would go to the bathroom to hide in the stall each morning because the bus dropped me off so early.  (That was a low part of my life....thankfully my parents moved me back to the public school with my friends shortly there after.)  Anyways, after retreating from the bathroom my friends all gradually began to show up and all was well.  We prayed the Rosary to honor our friend's father, shared a few laughs (most of them at my expense) and ended the night.  All is right in the world once again....that is until the next time the inevitable happens and I find myself once again walking into a room full of strangers.  Let's just hope there is an available bathroom nearby....;)