Newark Airport SAS Lounge and Loving Me at the end of this trip

I've got about 2 and a half hrs before the 18hours flight back to SG and rather than exercise my credit card(s) some more at the duty free shop here, I've decided to spend my time in the SAS lounge to write this instead. Below is a pic of the SAS lounge's complimentary internet stations, one of which I am hogging.

The selection of food at this lounge is rather meagre - just a salad bar really, (as compared to Changi Airport T3's lounge which I shall blog about another time), but since I have just USD30 in my wallet and I've also developed a taste for salads, I'm not complaining too much about my free dinner.

You know, there is this scientific finding that people always remember how they feel, and not so much the details of the specific incident/event. I could and will write about the places I've been, but right now I want to write about how I feel at the end of the trip before I get on the plane and watch more movies.

So. My "takeaway feeling" from this trip is that I am actually happy and comfortable being alone. There is no sense of loneliness or wishing that anyone was here with me. Sure, I do wish my sister was here when I see all the louboutin shoes but I don't wish she was here with with me on this trip. Sure, I do think my mother would have liked the awesome view of NYC from the Empire State Building but I didn't miss her when I was on the observatory deck taking photos or asking strangers to take photos. I did whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted, and it was all good. Being by myself didn't stop me from doing things that I wanted to do - such as eating at nice places or doing touristy things - even when everyone else had someone else with them. I only observed that I was the only one alone, but that observation was nothing more than just that - an observation, and then it was me being with me, and loving me.

Maybe it is because shopping is therapeutic, as is eating, and I was doing plenty of both. Or maybe it is because my circumstances are such that solitude and I are destined to be together...and given how futile it is to lament, reconciling myself to what I cannot change is the best and perhaps only way forward. Don't get me wrong that I don't like people or that I am going to do another "runaway" (and I really hope that I won't) But painful experience and my good colleague have taught me better than to pin my happiness and hope on another person.

So while I still hold to my favourite quote by Emily Kimbrough ("Remember we stumble everyone of us. That's why it is a comfort to go hand in hand""), I have learnt how to love me, be friends with me, and depend on me primarily for happiness and pleasure. A