I was alone in my Hell’s Kitchen apartment on a cold windy night in December when I realized for the first time that day that it was Friday. It was Friday and I was alone. At that moment I realized that I couldn’t remember that last time I had had a date on a Friday or Saturday night. All of my friends had very active social lives and yet here I was alone for the umteenth time on a weekend night. Why wasn’t I getting ask out on dates like they were? I pondered this as I sat on my couch eating a large plastic container of Pad Thai and watching season 7 of Friends on DVD. Is it my personality? Is it the way I look? Or is it possibly that I’ve spent the better part of the past six months sitting in front of my TV eating container after container of Thai, Chinese, and Mexican food? I was down to the last noodley bites when I stopped and stared at my grease-covered chopsticks. A drop of orangey oil slid down one of my chopsticks and dripped into my almost empty container. I put the last my Pad Thai on the coffee table and stared blankly at the TV for a moment. With a sudden surge of energy I jumped off the couch, grabbing my container of Pad Thai, and all the junk food in my cupboards, and shoving it into a trash bag that I promptly took to the trash room. I went to bed that night knowing tomorrow I wouldn’t be on my couch eating take-out. Tomorrow I would stop watching my life pass me by. Tomorrow was a new beginning.
