be ok with being alone

I’ve been in relationships for pretty much my entire life, well at least starting in high school. I’ve always had someone and when I didn’t I made sure I found someone quick, to prevent from being alone. My marriage of 7 years ended about a year ago and for the first time in a long time I’m alone. It’s been difficult to deal with but I feel this is a good thing in my life right now. Although I do feel lonely at times, I know this is something that I need to get through on my own. I don’t want to get into another relationship to prevent loneliness and I don’t want to be with anyone because I feel like they validate me, I don’t want to depend on someone else to make me happy. Life can be good alone, I have an opportunity to get to know myself again.

Just when I think I’m ready to remove this goal and mark it as done; just when I hear other friends talk about how it’s so hard being alone and I tell them it’s not that bad; just when I think I’m slightly better than everyone else for being content: I come crashing back down.
And, it’s all thanks to a stupid holiday and a stupid restaurant in which we waited an hour and a half for a table for 3 while all the tables for two got seated in 20 minutes. All thanks to friends who mean well but invite me to couples night – to watch their kids. And, all thanks to a man who doesn’t get why I’m fabulous and then those who might but aren’t in my life because of various legal reasons and the fact that I’m not a Mormon and can’t date/be married while still being married…
I am married but alone.
I hate it.

(Yeah, I haven’t succeeded at this one yet…these are just my notes regarding the journey!)

(2 WEEKS)
Coming home to an empty house brings about an immense amount of sadness that up until a few weeks ago I never would’ve guessed was possible.

Two short/impossibly long weeks ago I turned a corner in this whole separation thing. In the past 4 years I’d felt stifled – and over the course of time felt myself closing the door to my heart, soul and mind.

Two weeks ago I felt the spaces I’d closed off begin to open to family and friends. I felt a renewed sense of confidence and in a strange way; I felt an odd sense of freedom. I felt like I could conquer the separation, I felt like I could conquer the world. I felt like I could live alone and make it, happily.

I have now hopped another train of thought. In moving into this house, I feel the reality of where life has taken me. After 4 years of marriage and 3 months of drama, I am now living alone. …Shopping alone. Unpacking alone. Decorating alone. Switching over cable, gas and electric alone. Eating alone. Grieving the loss of Tim Russert alone. Waking up alone. Breathing alone. Squishing bugs alone. Living in a house with a scary attic alone. Organizing the fridge alone. Putting on my wedding ring, every day; alone.

The weight of doing these menial tasks is made heavier by the subtle pressure on the 3rd finger of my left hand. My rings serve as a constant reminder that life is not looking the way it should.

Along with the tangible weight of my rings is the weight of anticipation. I’ve been racking my brain to find out why living alone now is so much harder than when I was in college. The answer I stumbled upon is the idea of anticipation. On evenings where I came home before my husband, I carried that slight anticipation that around 7, 8, 9:00 he would come walking through that door. Even on the weekends he was out of town I lived my life knowing that he was coming back.

Now I come home and it’s just me. The anticipation of anyone coming through the door is removed, and I hate it.

I know I’m being a bit antsy. Unfortunately, I think it might be in my nature. I have to keep reminding myself: it’s only been a little over a week that I moved out of a loved one’s home; into a home by myself. Is it completely impossible for me to be OK with living alone in one week? Absolutely. Does my brain believe you? Absolutely not.

All is not lost, even though it feels like it. Friends and loved ones have survived much worse than this. And in the world of cliches, it can only get better from here.

(ONE MONTH)
Well. So far, it’s not been as hard as it was the first week (Thank GOD).

My job (which I LOVE) is working for a non-profit organization that organizes events and camps for kids and youth. We are currently in our 3rd week of camp.

I’ve found that I tend to avoid going home…for lots of reasons: one being that I have no one (nor the obligations) to go home to; another being that it’s simply more fun at work. However. In the past 3 weeks I’ve not been home before 12 midnight, and I’ve sufficiently watched my coach turn into a pumpkin, my ball gown into rags: I’ve got a wicked little headache that just will not stop, pulled me from my work and stranded me at home.

I certainly didn’t expect to say this, especially after that initial week of moving in, but I’m thrilled to be home, away from adults that I had pegged all wrong; and away from kids that are bound and determined to hug me. I’m thrilled to walk into my quiet little house, eat my pop-tarts for dinner and write/read/cry/think/pray…all alone.

Much like anything, there are good and bad days. The bad days leave me sitting, looking at the phone and the people I can call, all the while wishing that instead someone will be thinking of me and call just to say hey. The really bad days leave me crying into my pillow at night; or in the shower where they get washed down the drain with all the other junk from the day.

The good leave me bustling around my house with a sense of purpose. I can do yoga whenever I want without any snide comments, I can sing whatever is currently on my heart and I can read without interruption.

I’m still not happy I’m here, but, I’m not entirely miserable either. I guess that’s progress!

(FOUR MONTHS)
I live in lists: think in them, talk in them, prioritize in them, and write in them. (LOOK I’m doing it NOW!)

This being the 4th month we’ve been separated is no exception. I tried to string this together in some eloquent fashion, and it just wasn’t meant to be. So, this is where I am currently:

I want:
a partnership
for the wound to heal
to slow down some
to not forget the people who’ve helped me through
“to make you laugh”
to experience life at my fullest potential
and eventually, a man who will stand up: for good (both for good morally and for good as in a permanent frame of time)

I long to:
love someone more than myself
see the beauty I myself possess

I wait to:
love purely
be accepted completely
trust whole-heartedly
forgive entirely

More than once, practically every time I pray; the answer I’m given is to ‘wait’. Some days I’m OK with that answer, because the day ends just as quickly as it began. Some days, I’m not.

However, I know if I rush this process, I am cheating:
I am cheating Aaron out of the wife he deserves (if we can keep this on track).
If we cannot, I am cheating every other man who might possibly find interest in me out of dating a whole person.
I am cheating my friends out of days/weeks/years of time spent discussing their lives as opposed to this situation.
I am cheating my family out of the time they need to heal.
I am cheating myself out of not living life one day at a time, not truly experiencing all that is gut-wrenchingly difficult but is serving to make me more likeable, even to myself.

McDonald’s had a great Summer Olympics ad campaign, and the slogan has become applicable to my life, for I truly believe that if I lend myself to the process and choose to grow from it, this will will be true:

Amazing Awaits

I have my other half…. I hate being alone and maybe its a bad thing, but its me!!! and Im rarly alone anymore.. I have my baby!! oops…. babies!!! lol

I am recently (2 months) single. I am lonely and depressed. I want to figure out how not to be lonely. Any ideas on books? I don’t want to depend on someone else to validate my existence or importance in this world. I think thats what I have been doing…going from one relationship to another.

For most of my adult life, I have been in some kind of relationship. The times when I did not have a significant other, I was depressed, heartbroken, and/or miserable. Just when I started coming out of my funk, I’d end up in another relationship, and the cycle would begin again.

I want to be OK with being alone. I want to stop viewing every person I meet as a potential candidate for love. I just want to be myself. But first, I want to figure out who that is.

For the first time in my life, I find myself living alone. Without family, partner, friends. Some days, it’s OK, other days, it’s unbearable. I need to learn to be OK being alone and being with myself. I truly believe that until I am comfortable in this state, I cannot be fully “whole” in a relationship.

I’m so tired of moaning with my girlfriends about being lonely, wishing we were in relationships. One of my closest friends told me that she even wished she were in a bad relationship, because at least then she’d be feeling something other than alone.

Sometimes I think we forget that we come into this world with only a familial relationship, not a romantic one. And that “single” is most likely our default setting as human beings.

I’m trying to work on being okay with this. It’ll be a bumpy ride, I think :P

I may be alone, but I am never lonely.

My sister went to visit my Mom for two weeks, I was newly single, and alone. And you know what? I was okay.