I'm remembering, slowly, how to live without hope.
OK, OK, that's a little melodramatic. I'll re-state. I'm learning to live without the hope of love. Learning again to live alone.
Living alone, as a committed single one-person household without hope of parole, is a solitary art. A completely unappreciated art because there isn't an audience. Who ever says "Wow. She really knows how to live alone! She's totally mastered isolation, and she's still happy!"
I can't always tell my family what is going on in my life -- they start feeling sorry for me, which is not what need at all. My Mom, while I love her, is often the worst. If I bitch about being alone she asks if I want to move back home. I know she's trying to show she loves me, but an "easy out" is not what I need. I'm not sure what I
would like to hear her say on the subject, so I censor myself so it never comes up.
Through this blog I can talk about being alone without making my family and friends pity me. I can reach out, in a very solitary way. I can communicate through the silences that engulf my life.
Because being alone is hard. You have to take full responsibility for your emotions. You can't claim another person has "made you mad" or is "ignoring" you. Alone means working past that level, asking instead why another person's actions upset you. It means questioning what you can do to change yourself, so the pain that person inflicts metamorphosizes into something different.
Living alone, really alone, forces you to figure out what's important in your life, what makes you climb out of bed most mornings but sometimes stay in bed and cry. It teaches you who is important in your life -- who do you remember to call, who do you ask for help, who listens when you've had enough of the cats? It forces you to accept your blue moods, but work to defeat them. Being alone teaches you when to give in and buy chocolate (all too often of late) and when to pull out an exercise tape.
Of course being alone also gives an incredibly overweight woman the freedom to actually work through a completely unsuitable belly-dance workout tape in the nude (too lazy to dress) while constantly sidestepping a pile of laundry that hasn't moved in three weeks.
Being alone means giving in to strange, random impulses that can add a little unexpected fun to life. I'm sure every single person has their own brand of weirdness, their own hidden (or not so hidden!) eccentricities. And that's what I really meant to write about tonight, but I got all sidetracked thinking about how I'm never going to be able to fall in love again, and that entire soliloquy spilled out instead.
Random impulses -- remember? Back on track? OK, then.
Today's not-for-prime-time impulse was to buy
The Paper Jewelry Collection at the Salvation Army. It's a book with punch-out easy-assemble paper jewelry. I bought it mainly because I wanted to look at the techniques they were using. Also because I thought this would be fun to do with my niece next time she spends the night. And lastly because I fell in love with a bracelet and the hair jewels pictured in the book.
When I looked through the book I found there wasn't anything complicated about the hair jewelry, and also decided that (given time) I could improve on the ones in the book. I found a sheet of scrapbooking paper, whipped out a pair of scissors, and started snipping. I liked what I've come up with so far. I think it could be improved on with a little gold paint and maybe some of those stick-on rhinestones, but it isn't bad for a ten-minute effort. The photos took longer than the hair ornaments. It would also be a little easier with that pack of fancy-edge scissors I didn't buy at Sam's last week. Must go re-shop that store.
My own personal Medusa's Garden. Here is a photo of the top of my head. You can see it's mainly a cluster of bobby pins. Given time I could have concealed them a little better, I'm sure.
These next two show what it actually looks like, except the lighting is bad. It was hard to get a full photo -- my arm just wasn't long enough to capture the top of the highest ornament.
Now I need an occasion. Isn't Mardi Gras coming up soon? I can't wait that long . . . Happily I have a cup of tea steeping in my new (thrift-store impulse-buy) green tea-for-one set. I'll have a formal tea, complete with sugared toast and Vivaldi.
I am happy I live alone. Who could I ever share this with?
