I, Alone

on learning to embrace being alone

“You should start dating again.”

I’ve heard this sentence a hundred times in the past few months from well meaning people who think I’m doing myself a disservice by being alone. It’s been two years and three months since he left, 18 months since the divorce was final. While there’s no proper time to move on and find someone else, I just don’t feel ready yet. It’s a very personal decision and I don’t know how to explain to people that I don’t want another relationship right now without sounding like I’m putting off the idea forever.

I’ve looked at dating sites. Sometimes the whim hits me and I think it would be nice to get together with another adult and get dressed up and go out for dinner and drinks. It sounds nice. But it also sounds daunting at the same time. I have no idea what to put on a dating profile (I’ve got three divorces under my belt, would you like to be the fourth?), or how to describe myself (frumpy, overweight sixty year old who likes to stay home and watch baseball). Which is all fine as I’m never going to actually join a dating site.

See, I have learned a lot about myself over the past two years. I’ve learned a lot about going it alone, and the truth is, I like this. I’ve written before about how I am learning to love the little things, like controlling the remote and not bothering to make dinner if I don’t feel like it. But it’s more than that. I truly like what I have discovered about myself while being alone.

The past year for me has been a constant run of health problems. At first I was kind of mad that he abandoned me and left me to deal with all of this on my own, without someone to hold my hand during important doctor visits, without someone by my side as I underwent test after test and procedure after procedure. My sisters and parents have been great during all of this chaos, but I was upset to have no one to come home to, someone who would hold me and brush my hair back from my eyes and tell me everything is going to be ok. I missed that. I needed that. Until I didn’t.

As the months progressed and I went to more appointments, and felt absolutely dreadful, I got used to dealing with this alone, more or less. At times I would sit here on the couch and cry about my various ailments, cry that there was no one to help me off the couch when the pain was too much, cry that I had no one sitting across from me telling me they loved me and they would see me through this. Little by little, I stopped the self pity. I stopped the crying. I took into account everything I had - a loving, supportive family who were doing everything they can for me and friends that rallied around me - and realized that I did not need to have a partner in order to heal and thrive, I did not need a partner to push myself forward. I could do this on my own.

Being alone is a weird thing after being in a fourteen year relationship. It takes some getting used to. It’s kind of surreal at first, always expecting someone to be there to listen to my thoughts, to hear me complain, to hug and cuddle when things are bad. I kept cooking for two even though I was just one person, until I basically stopped cooking for a while because it was making me feel sad and lonely. I felt like my footsteps echoed in a house that was now too quiet. I thought I’d never get used to the idea of solitude, of going it alone.

Getting sick changed things. I knew I couldn’t wallow. I knew I couldn’t mope. I had appointments to keep, phone calls to make, I couldn’t just sink into my couch in despair. I had no one else to take care of me. I had to do it myself. So I took charge of my life. Our marriage was one where he was the leader, where I followed along with what he said. He took charge of everything and I sat back and let life unfold. For most of our years together, he was the coordinator of my world. I let myself fall into a habit of letting him take care of everything and thus I was fully unprepared to deal with this all on my own.

I don’t want to say it happened overnight, but I did have a late night, THC induced epiphany about taking control of my life. I had wandered in a sort of limbo since he left; I could not exist in that limbo if I wanted to get better. And lord, did I want to get better. I started to do more for myself, to put myself first. I found the freedom from being out from under his thumb sort of exhilarating at first. It took me two years to find that place, but I did and it was glorious. I found that once I took control and started doing the things I need to do to take care of me and me only, I wanted to shoot forward. I was no longer content to just let the loneliness and despair fade out. I pushed them out of the way by embracing being alone. And a big part of that was about keeping my doctor appointments, advocating for myself, and taking charge of both my illnesses and my feelings about being alone.

I’ve learned a lot about myself in the last two years, but I learned so much in just the past couple of months. I discovered that I can handle adversity. I can handle upsets. I just had to accept being alone first. Once I accepted that, my worldview changed drastically. I started to fight back against the despair and claw my way out of darkness and with that came the confidence I needed to do things I had to do. It feels great to advocate for myself, to push doctors to listen to me when I’m discussing my health, to come home to an empty house but not feel empty inside.

I realized through all of this that I do not need another partner in my life. First, I wouldn’t want to bring anyone into my world where I am constantly going to doctor appointments and feeling physically unwell. That’s asking a lot of someone. And I just don’t need it. There is no timeline in which bringing another man into my life seems like a good idea. I am learning to enjoy being alone. I am getting to know myself all over again. I watch what I want to watch and eat or not eat whenever I want to. I come and go as I please. And I am still growing, still learning. I am, at sixty, a work in progress and I like where I’m headed.

Maybe when all my health issues are behind me and I’m feeling okay, I’ll think about dating. But most likely it will just be a fleeting thought. I like where I’m going and it’s good that I’m going there alone.