I'm Learning How to be Alone

It feels empty. The floors are dark hardwood and the paint is fresh. It even smells empty. The bed is empty. It’s been two and a half years since I walked into a house knowing that it would always be empty. It feels like two things. It feels like… not exactly loneliness, but almost. Maybe just solitude in a way I don’t remember feeling it. I’ve lived 31 years and in those years, I’ve very rarely been by myself. I’m not sure I know how. But that emptiness also smells like freedom. It’s silly to think about it, but no one will be mad because I forgot to pick up my socks, no one will move my mail somewhere that I can’t find it, and no one will expect me to cook dinner or make some other arrangements every night. The kid is quite happy with takeout, and so am I some nights.

There are boxes all over. Most of them are labeled. The move went well. We hired professionals for all the heavy stuff. It was all done in about six hours. I kind of purged the stuff I no longer cared for when I moved in with him and I’m purging again on moving out. It was really mostly packed in the first place. That was kind of surreal as I wandered through five bedrooms, a bonus room, the living room, the parlor, the kitchen, two and a half baths, and a three car garage and saw really just how little was mine to take.

It’s smaller than I thought it would be. There are fewer places to tuck things out of the way too. I had to really work magic to find a place for that automatic litter box. The half bath is pretty much filled up with it. I tripped over a box in my bathroom floor this morning. It’s full of stuff I need. I guess I should unpack it. Maybe one of those nights I don’t pass out before 9:00, huh?

I open a box, take out what I need. I try to empty most of them as I go. How the hell did I end up with so much stuff? Useless, pointless stuff that’s languished in the attic for this long, it can languish somewhere else. No kidding: a beer stein from the Renaissance Festival in Texas ten years ago. Why did I keep that? It’s not even sentimental. Half-full boxes that I never finished unpacking. But hey, at least they weren’t heavy.

I woke up this morning and was happily surprised that I had myself replaced the coffee filter after removing yesterday morning’s with a fresh one, thus eliminating a step between me and my liquid sleep. That was very nice of me. I realized in that moment that the reason I’d always wanted to find someone to do nice little things for me is because I neglected to do them for myself.

I’ve already fallen into what must be a healthier routine. I don’t fall asleep to the tv each night anymore. That was never really my habit anyway. I have been in bed by 9:00 pm every night and I wake up feeling fresh and rested (when Blanche the cat decides to meow into my nose at 5:00 am). I don’t hit the snooze button. I get right out of bed and get my day started.

I manage even to leave the house earlier with no one to be concerned about saying goodbye to. Just wake the kiddo, feed the cat, make my coffee, ship the small off to school, gather my required things and head off to work.

With a sort of calm detachment, I realize that this is the way I’m supposed to live. Maybe I’m selfish. Maybe I’m set in my ways from getting to my rather advanced age (hardy har from the fat, old men in the south) and having not been married.

Maybe there is just not room in my life to cram a whole other life into it and try to make the pieces fit. They never seem to fit. But I suspect that calm detachment comes from my knowing for a long, long time that I’m meant to be this way. I had denied it for so long because I thought that without romantic love, my life would never be complete. And I thought that the people who had decided otherwise were crazy. How could you be happy alone? In the words of one of the wisest men I know “I thought that I was running to what I was running from.” Maybe we can fix that trajectory.

 The secret is enjoying your own company. And I truly do. I have friends and books and hobbies. I have a wonderful little kitty and a wonderful little boy. I have posters and records and art to hang on my walls and cleaning to do. I have running to meditate through and music to hear and life to go out and take a huge ass bite out of. I have cookies and cheesecakes to bake and amazing new salmon recipes to try. I have grad school calling my name. God, I have a whole book to write that I swore I’d write and barely managed a few chapters of and never finished because I was afraid I wasn’t good enough and had too many people agreeing with me. I have dreams to chase and they don’t require the acceptance or approval of anyone else. I have my own person to be; to become. And I’m high on that freedom.

All that said, if you’re considering asking me out—don’t. Not right now. Let me really learn to breathe fire without someone else pouring gasoline down my throat.

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