Solitude has become my new normal. My resolution to avoid pursuing relationship of the female variety has left me largely to my own devices. What are the positives?:
- It forces me to feel the feelings of loneliness that constantly arise, and to deal with them. Do I really want to call someone up/find a companion for some ostensible reason which is really just to avoid being alone? Clearly that’s the reason most people have friends, but I always end up feeling antsy, and as though there is something I want to or should be doing instead. Sooo … I’ll live with those moments for the time being, and resolve them by diverting my energy towards one of the things that I always told myself I should be doing when I was with someone else.
- It lets me do “my thing” without guilt, except insofar as I feel guilty about being so odd. Days can be spent with the routine maintenance of this one 62-year old male …. showering him, shaving him, dressing him, preparing meals for him, and feeding him those meals. Shopping for him. Finding some recreation (usually of the video variety) for him. On a weekend day, these tasks consume the day. Somehow, on a workday, they more or less get done in and around the prescribed work activities, but it isn’t easy.
- It makes me think more carefully about time, our most precious commodity, and how I really want to spend it. It gives me time to come to terms with my oddities, and, not judgmentally, wonder if reforming some of those oddities would make my life more enjoyable.
And the negatives:
- I feel like a freaking weirdo. Not only do I lack family or offspring, I also lack, apparently, any human connections. This is not entirely true … I do have dance, if I want to pursue it (I was glad to go to Anne’s Manchester dance last Thursday, and she was glad to see me). I will go to visit Wendie soon. I’m hoping to make a trip on an airplane to see one of the two western Deirdres this spring or summer.
- I become a self-absorbed monster. Any thoughts for the welfare of others are subsumed by my intense naval-gazing
My method, which one might call, “waiting for a sign,” while attempting to do the things that I always bemoaned missing out on when I felt trapped by a relationship feels suspect, and I sometimes fear for my mental health.