Alone (On Being)
Just muddled my way through my third marriage. Sad, but relieved, I live alone in a small one-bedroom apartment on the south Caribbean sea. Halfway to completing my 75th year, I am grateful to wake up every morning and to be able to care for myself. I have nearby friends and family (I consider my ex’s family mine as well) and kids and a grandkid in the states.
I knew it was possible it would end this way…I’m 26 years her senior, but in Latin America, this is not unusual. Eventually, health, age, youth, and vigor will dictate the direction a life journey will take, and often, each half of a couple will wind up moving in different physical and emotional directions. And so we did, and so I am….Alone.
Of course, it’s my choice. I am lonely, but free from constant demands on my time and energy. I have my work, and I always have an opportunity to engage with other people. Sometimes that just doesn't work out. Sometimes, it’s laziness that causes me to avoid going out; sometimes I go out just to go out. It’s all good; no harm done.
My good friend Christian, who passed away a few years ago, lived alone from his 50th birthday until he died at 84. He suffered from constant pain, caused by several ailments and a couple of IMHO bad operations. I visited him at his home on the Northern California coast at least once per year. I often wondered how he did it. How did he live alone with so little human contact?
I found myself in a similar situation after my second wife had died from cancer. The empty space in my heart and soul left by her passing had debilitated me and even caused me to be impulsive, sometimes to my detriment. So I asked him, “Christian, how do you do it? How do you spend day after day by yourself? He said, Well! I’m damn fine company!”
I immediately got it. What if I treated myself as an honored guest in my home; someone I invited for dinner or drinks or to listen to some great music? How would that be? And so I started doing it. I bought the best of everything I could reasonably afford (and some I couldn’t), and I enjoyed the hell out of it! I started treating myself with the same love and respect I would give to a lifelong dear friend.
That one small answer by my dear friend Christian changed my life forever.
The void of loneliness still touches me occasionally, but it is not the main theme of my life. What you don't have, can never be the main theme of your life. I wake up every morning, grateful to just have woken up, to be able to move about, and to create.
If you are missing something in your life, then create something. Write, draw, make music just for the sake of doing it. Your creations will become your children and fill at least some of the emptiness you feel. If you feel that all of the doors in your house of life have closed; look for more doors to open. There are always more doors.
And, when you want, there are people you can choose to keep you company.
Blessings.
lt
