I am single. I'm going to be 36 this year and I've never been married or engaged. I have no children. Half a century ago I would have been a lost cause. Things are different now. People get married for the first time in their fifties and sixties and are better people for the wait. Singer/songwriter Verlon Thompson wrote a beautiful song about just that type of experience, "The Getting to You Waltz." But I am no longer waiting for that perfect person. I am single, not by default but by choice.
My not-so-recent breakup with the only person I've ever been in love with hasn't left me with any desire to find someone new or better. I no longer feel that my "soulmate" is still "out there." It's hard to describe fully, but I feel satisfied, for the first time ever, with my experiences in that area of life. I am on to something new, and that thing is me.
How does one exist without the driving need to couple? If you have that hunger for love, it is next to impossible to negate it. But if it just disappears one day, vanishes without leaving even a space where it had been, can one get by? The answer is not yes but Yes! I feel fine. I'm not lonely. I have really, really great, good friends and family. I don't even wish there was someone to share it with, and at long last, I don't really care that I'm not still "friends" with him. This life is all mine.
Maybe this feeling, this selfishness, is also just a phase, just another part of the healing process. Maybe one day after a few years, I'll wake up and wish for company. Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe I'll meet someone before that day comes who just fits in beautifully and I'll wake up next to that person without ever compromising my desires in the search. Maybe I don't have to make it happen.
For now and the foreseeable future, I keep company with Trace, my seven-year old Border Collie, and Bolt, my three-year old rescue. They tend to fill the space just enough. I am filling my life up with my things, my writing, this blog, my quilting, my crafting, my yoga practice, my nephew. I don't even have to put matching sheets on the bed. Imagine! I can't wait to find even more things that can be just for me, though now I can't fathom what they would be.
Last year a fellow bachelorette friend of mine declared she was getting married in 2012. It didn't happen. Let me just take this moment to declare, "I will not be getting married this year, 2013." Don't place your bets on next year, either. It's my time.
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