I know that solo-date night is supposed to be about
celebrating my solitude, enjoying my own company, and learning to rely less on
others for fulfillment. But fuck. Sometimes it’s ridiculously hard to celebrate
when I’m craving The Boss like a morphine junkie…when I’m missing human contact
*so* much.
I used to be really good at this part. My former marriage used to be something I
needed to escape from time to time to time to as much as humanly possible. Our home was a prison made of bars I’d
equally helped craft. I told myself it
was the happily-ever-something or other than every girl dreams of, but it was
just an avoidance of the reality of who I was, and who he was.
When I was there, in that, I loved going out by myself. I could enjoy a museum or book store for
hours without a hint of longing or missing of anyone. I have never been one to balk at asking for a
table for one. I love food and talking
with ones’ mouth full isn’t very polite, but I do it anyway, so dining alone is
ok. It gives me a chance to practice my
manners.
I’m not usually lonely during the times when I’m alone…or,
at least, that used to be the case. But
sometimes, lately, the feel of my own skin becomes desolate and I desperately
want to feel someone else’s skin, and hear someone else’s voice. I could find someone to spend the time with,
I’m sure. I have an OKCupid profile and
everything! *much groaning and head-shaking*
I could find someone to stroke away the sound of my own
voice clanging around inside my head.
But I decided something a few months back, as I was sweeping up the
wreckage from another hopeship dashed on the
rocks of “oh fuck, this is real life,” when the winds of change took
some interesting and frustrating turns.
I decided at that point, licking my wounds and taking stock of my own careless
steering of said vessel, that my focus belonged in one of two places. I’ve dedicated my energies to The Boss. Taking care of him, not as a mother to a
child, but as a servant to a Master. And
I have devoted myself, once again, to taking care of that “other” person in my
life – That red-headed step-child of my energies and best intentions. And there simply wasn’t room for anyone else
to get much priority at that time.
Yeah I know. As
clichéd and played-out as it sounds, I decided to revisit this self-care
stuff. With much enthusiasm and
simultaneous fear and chagrin, self-date night was reborn…apparently.
Yippee
It started out successfully enough. I made a promise to myself that going to the
movies was going to be a priority for me this year. I’d only been twice in the last year and I
really enjoy film. So I could spend my
solo-date nights seeing the movies that I wanted to see, anyone else’s opinion
be damned. And then I’d enjoy a nice
dinner to myself, take a book, or my journal, or laptop, and celebrate my
relationship with myself. This
celebration often ended with a lazy but satisfying session with various
insertables, electrical devices, and porn.
I like to fuck on my dates. That
applies to solo-date night, without question.
Everything was going really well! Except…well…I haven’t had solo date night in
over a month. Those feisty winds of
change blew again, and through various circumstances both fortunate and un-, I
was blessed and positively spoiled with night after night of *actual* date
nights! You know…with a *real
date!* I got to spend several weeks with
The Boss, spoiling the ever-luvin’ crap outta him, at my house! A girl couldn’t be happier. Fuck.
I enjoyed it.
But I knew at the outset of the visit that it would end, and
I had a pretty good suspicion that the transition back to solo-time would be
difficult once he went home again.
Apparently commuting over 6 hours round trip daily for work just wasn’t
a plan he liked. (I know, sometimes he
is completely unreasonable in his expectations, but I supposed I’ll go ahead
and love the fuck out of him anyway…*giggle*).
Long-distance dating is hard, ya’ll. And I welcomed a reprieve from the distance
in a way not dissimilar to the way a drowning man welcomes air into his
lungs. Only I hadn’t been drowning in my
lonely. But you’d think I had been, the
way I pulled him into my chest and filled my lungs and drank him up once more
and again…over and over.
My gods, it was indescribable. In quiet moments of enjoying my bliss,
however, I came to realize a few facts hidden in the deep dark woods of this
temporary fairytale situation. I was
grateful beyond words for the time I was given.
And I knew that I would be very sad to see him go, once that time
came. And I knew that someday (please
Gods someday…) I’d be more than happy, waiting with bells on and shit, to give us
a real shot at some version of permanence and cohabitation and domesticity…
But not now. Not
yet. Not as I am in this moment. Four weeks in
and the long slender tentacles of co-dependent need and craving had set
in and I knew there is more work yet to be done on this here mess of a
soul. Work that can only be done in the
semi-peaceful, agonizing silence of solitude.
I am not yet good at this…but I will be.
*I am a woman when you kiss me, a child when you leave…*
I’m pretty sure those are the words to a terrible horrible
no good very bad love song. But they
fit, today. *head-drop*
So if I am a woman when he kisses me and a child when he
leaves….then I am positively 15 years old again when he doesn’t text me for 14
hours straight! But I wish to be a woman
at *all* times. I wish to make him proud
in *all* circumstances. I wish to make
*me* proud in all circumstances.
Those winds blew again, and he is back at home now. Our long-distance love affair has resumed,
albeit with frequent fills of the gas tank and many miles put on cars over the
weekends…
And as the fates tend to manage, flawlessly, we are both
exactly where we are supposed to be.
I am currently alone.
On a Thursday night. My craft
beer and pub-sirloin are half gone and my table is quiet. There is live music in the loft above
me. I’ve sat with my discomfort tonight,
pulled myself through the painful bits.
I haven’t texted him all day, because I *needed* to text him. I *needed* to have contact and get some sort
of reassurance that he hasn’t forgotten me, four days after leaving. So I didn’t text him. I am waiting until that need settles the fuck
down and simply becomes a *want.* It’s
an exercise in control.
This will all be fine. I will become the rational, fully
functional, enlightened and peaceful fucking person I am meant to be. I can feel it in my bones…
In the meantime, I’ll go ahead and admit that I just *squeed!!* like a 15 year old (very much out loud and
not at all in my head) when my phone lit up with a message and I saw his
name.
One day at a time? J
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