Doing it alone?
For much of my life, I’ve looked for a mate.
Let me qualify that a bit. What I think makes a mate may not be what someone else thinks of. To me, a mate is a partner, not to complete me, but to share life with. It’s not someone I “need” or feel I “can’t live without.” It’s someone who will encourage and believe in me, share their thoughts with me, want to know my thoughts, want to share time together, and not be stuck on whether or not we enjoy the same things, but learn to enjoy and be interested in things outside their normal range because those things are enjoyable to me. It’s someone who will share with me the things they are interested in, whether it’s an interest of mine or not, and understand that I want that sort of sharing because it expands the world as a whole and that in understanding what someone loves, it’s possible to learn a great deal about that person and how they see the world.
I want someone who would also seek to improve their own life, someone who I can believe in, not because they have great ideas, but because they act on those ideas. Even if they were to try and fail a hundred times, if there were a sincere effort, that is the spirit I would like to find in someone.
I want someone who understands that if partnered together, all my strengths and weaknesses are theirs to add to whatever list of strengths and weaknesses they have; and that theirs would also become mine.
I would just about give my eye teeth for someone who was responsible about their commitments, to me, to others, and to themselves.
Yes, someone who is caring, compassionate, strong, and who has and holds clear boundaries for themselves is also desireable to me. As is someone who appreciates and respects my own boundaries.
I want someone who isn’t hell-bent on self-destruction, as well. That seems to be a problem for me though, more than anything else. I keep finding people who are engaged in some of the most self-destructive habits I’ve ever seen. Narcissism by choice, abusiveness, self-abusiveness, low self-esteem, alcoholism, drug addiction, self-limiting based on familial or social perceptions, and so on.
So, I sit here, as I sat here last night, reviewing all of this in my mind. My mother stated recently, after a conversation about my current relationship, that she figures I’ll have to “do it alone.” She sounded sad when she said it, and did say that she hadn’t wanted that for me. I was also somewhat sad when I replied that this is, apparently, how it will have to be.
I’ve been alone before, without so much as a date for a few years, in fact. I had friends and people around who cared, but no relationship, no hope of finding someone. At that time, however, I thought no one would want me. I could not fathom anyone being sincerely interested in me. That was a lifetime ago. My son, now grown to early adulthood, was a small child then. My daughters hadn’t even started school.
Now, it is a different situation. I don’t think myself uninteresting, “too much trouble,” or any of the other things I thought then. I have a dynamic personality, and despite the ongoing struggles with depression and anxiety, I honestly love life, and the living of it. I’m intelligent, insightful, thoughtful, and caring. I have a lot to offer, were I to come to a relationship. It sounds arrogant to say it so plainly, I know. We’re never supposed to admit our good points.
The problem now is that I have no real interest in continuing this quest for the holy grail of partnership. I’ve watched what passes for a partnership in the relationships around me. I’ve watched my own relationships. While I’m sure my grandmother meant well when she said to marry your best friend, and to keep that friendship alive, I doubt she understood that it isn’t something that happens anymore. No one out here seems to understand that part of a relationship. Also, too few are interested in growing, becoming something new, or more than they were. Too many are complacent, bored with life, and looking for someone else to fix it.
I am not the cosmic repair-woman. If your life needs flushing, do it yourself.
And so, I look ahead. I have a decent chance of selling photography soon. I have people interested in my art work. I am studying for my computer certifications and have a business plan coming together. I have three children who are either new adults, or approaching adulthood, and who I am proud of and looking forward to seeing their lives unfold further. I have friends who care and who I care about. I am a quiet person, and shy in mediums outside of the internet, and this means that I don’t tend to go about to large social functions. I rarely meet new people, but that’s fine too. I am not happy about not finding the partner I wanted, but I am content without one.
My heart does hurt right now. I still have to figure out how to break the heart of the man I’m with. Despite his many problems, and the many reasons I can’t stay with him, he’s a good man and he loves me. I just know that this will never work out as it is, and he doesn’t want to grow or change anything in his life. I told him I would not marry an alcoholic, and that I would walk through recovery with him, but that I would not stay if he did not seek help. It is time to stand up for my word and hold those boundaries I mentioned earlier. It’s sad, and painful, but I’ve endured the end of a relationship before, and will survive this one.
I just wonder, is life alone so miserable by default that it should be avoided in the first place? My happiest years were spent with only my children in my home in a tiny townhouse. It was hard work, and frustrating, and stressful and exhausting, but it was also deeply rewarding and brilliantly enjoyable. It’s the only time in my adult life that I found myself with moments of freedom to do or be whatever I chose, regardless of what others thought of me.
If that is what I have to look forward to, I should have no sadness remaining once the hurt of this relationship ending is healed.
What if I were to go out into the world with my camera and lay on the ground to get the perfect angle for a picture? There would be no one around whose opinion of me mattered enough to stop it.
What if I were to go out into the world and decide on whim that I wanted to play music from the 50′s and 60′s and sing and dance with pure abandon to them in my home late at night? There would be no one to complain that I was “too happy” or that I couldn’t sing properly or that my dancing was lacking in form or “correctness.”
What if I were out in the world alone and decided that the music I was listening to made me feel like dancing down the sidewalk? Who would be there to tell me to not do that, or to comment one way or another?
What if I were in the world and I created several pieces of art and hung them on my walls? Who would be there to say that they didn’t like them?
There is a freedom to being alone. My great aunt found it. She had a rich, full, happy life with her daughter and her friends. She accomplished things and took care of herself. She was, even to the last moment she was alive, when she gave me a message for our family, a woman with a chronic and infectious smile, who loved easily and freely, and who believed in living life for the experience of it.
May I be so blessed.
