Busy people, who surround themselves with four kids, a husband, a wide social circle, a dog, two cats, and countless gerbils, do it because they don't like to be alone. I am one of those people.

My girlfriends, therefore, called me crazy when I told them I was going to go without a date for the next month.

I had no idea it was going to be so hard. Unplugging the phone and suspending the match.com account has not been without ramifications. The first night was horrible.

It reminded me of the first weeks of being separated.

The first thing I did Friday night after work was turn the lights down and turn the radio up. With the scent of candles wafting through the house, I ran a bath and decided to concentrate on "me" time.

Normally the kids would be watching TV in the living room, asking for second helpings of dinner. On nights when the kids are with their Dad, I'd be out for drinks with friends.

Weekends post-divorce, I'd usually be juggling a man, or two.

But not this month. This is solo month and I'm determined to find out what makes me tick.

There is no choice but to succeed. If I can't wrestle some quiet time into my hectic life, then nothing is going to change from the days when I was married.

By 8 o'clock I'd downed two glasses of wine and was feeling weepy. Wine churning around in an empty stomach, and the silence of a childless house, were enough to make me run screaming from the suburbs.

When the divorce was first under way, I'd thought about getting an apartment in the city. My ex told me that he'd make life with the children impossible if I did that, so I'd reneged, a good choice for the kids, but a tough sacrifice for a middle-age woman alone in a house in the middle of August, with nothing but the crickets chirping outside.

It might as well have been Stephen King's Maine.

These are the times when the mind swirls with: "Why did I leave?" "It wasn't so bad," and "I could be in Fire Island with my family."

Maybe it's just an innate sense of drama, but more likely it's hormones, and the kind of regret that swells up during quiet time. That's the exact reason we keep ourselves so busy, so we don't have to think about stuff like this. There's the unbelievable sadness of some circumstances that seem completely out of our control.

So, what do we do when we feel out of control? We try to get our footing back. At least this is what I told myself as I weakly chopped vegetables and switched from radio to an audio book.

A million thoughts ran through my head while I cooked. I felt wobbly and mostly just wanted to call my last boyfriend and beg him to take me back.

But I didn't.

Instead, I took that bath, finished the wine, went upstairs to my bed, and fell asleep with the TV on, waking once at 3 am long enough to have an anxiety attack and cry myself back to sleep.

I had thoughts echoing in the dark like, "I'm going to be alone for the rest of my life," and "I'm going to end up destitute and ill with no one to love me."

Night is always the best time for this kind of thinking!

I woke up utterly unrefreshed, heart still pounding with some kind of residual panic, the quiet house all around me and a week ahead of me with no plans.

There are many reasons for the decision to spend more time focusing on me and less energy finding a man, but the best reason has to do with the vague notion that if I can be satisfied with my own company, that might be a good start on the road to happiness.

Still, with the rest of the month to go, I think I'm going to need a plan.