In the loneliest time in my life, I spent a lot of time in my local bagel shop. I was living in Baltimore, a new city, and had just gone through a splintering breakup. As a middle school teacher living with two others, I was often surrounded by people. And yet I was lonely in my classroom full of students and lonely in my apartment full of roommates. I was lonely in my room at night, where Netflix would accost me with the passive aggressive, “Are you still watching?”
On Sunday mornings at the bagel shop though, being alone never felt so bad. I had my Sundays down to a science. Grabbing my latest book, I drove eight minutes to the bagel store by the water, one of the few routes I had memorized. There, I waited in line while watching for a booth to empty.