Words of Comfort

I have a small print of the piece above, sitting above my kitchen sink, something I see every day now. I just finished moving into a new apartment, or rather a really old one, but with lots of character and a fenced-in backyard for my dog. There are hardwood floors throughout, and the neighborhood is close-knit and fun. It is a wonderful place for me to live.

Getting here over the past week was not fun. It was a nightmare of people I hired for the move turning out to be shady characters and abandoning me half way through and me having to involve the police. It was me being horribly sick throughout the whole process, sicker than I can ever remember being, with some sort of mutant bronchitis that nearly leveled me. I was afraid and stressed, and very much alone.

I am thirty-nine, about to turn forty in a few months, and as many times as I discuss my "single-dom" with others--friends and family--and sometimes strangers, I always say I am fine being where I am right now. And that is true. I am especially fine being single after hanging up the phone with friends struggling through bad marriages that once held nothing but promise. I am fine when I leave the house of married friends who left their happiness behind years ago at another address. Even when I talk or see my friends who are in happy marriages, I don't go home and feel sad or lonely because that is something I don't have.

Mainly, I feel ok because I have always felt I have good friends and a decent life. I have worked hard in the last year to concentrate on making my life richer beyond work and the things that have cluttered it before.

But this past week, I did feel more alone than I can ever remember feeling. Mostly because I needed someone--I needed help--in a way that I don't that often. I am so used to barrelling through the regular day-to-day life things on my own that truly being unable to handle something like moving--which I have done more times in my life than I can count--was paralyzing. I have had bigger problems than this to deal with.

But, trying to move my entire life from one place to another without help was overwhelming. And the whole experience put into sharp focus for me that I am alone. And it has been harder and harder to make peace with that for me in the last week, and the argument in my head troubles me.

It has made me understand why people stay together when they shouldn't, and after the light of a marriage has gone out. The day-to-day struggles of life are hard to deal with alone.

And tonight, as I sit here worrying over finances, job stability, and the ants that are invading my kitchen, I know these worries are silently, fiercely my own. And the mistakes and choices that got me here are my own, too.

And those "words of comfort" referenced above are a little hard to find.