I have talked about The Tribe many times. We all started off single. I am now the last woman standing. Holding her own, on her own. It is kind of weird. It brings up all kinds of feelings...I am not sure which ones are ego and which ones are real.
There is this part of me that feels like there is just no other half for me. I can’t picture him anymore. I used to have this idea about him, this vague sense of knowing who he was. I don’t think I have that anymore. That died with Lane and I haven’t been able to reconnect to that feeling again.
So it is pretty arrogant to think that there is no one else on earth for you. I get that. Although I can promise that my thoughts about that do not come from a place of feeling so fabulous about myself. No, instead those feelings come from a place of fear and not really self loathing...but more of a place of honest appraisal of oneself. I am not an easy person. I am kind of relentless, demanding, opinionated, ocd, set in my ways and a pile driver. I collect animals like some people collect coffee cups. I have a rigorous spiritual practice that my life depends upon. There are many other woman that would be way less work than me...
I am a deep thinker and challenge taker. I can’t stop - as soon as I see where I am broken, wounded, hampered - I have to move towards that and see what is there.
So at 50, I will admit that I am kind of losing faith that I have an other half.
And with that admission, I have to acknowledge that both pains me and confirms what I have long felt about myself.
It pains me because I do believe that I have a lot to offer a partner. However, my struggle with being intimate and really sharing myself with someone probably an easier path with someone other than me.
I guess what I am trying to get at and share about myself is that I really like being alone. I enjoy just talking to the animals, or saying nothing at all. I like being home alone. Going to bed alone and waking up alone. These are parts of my day that I really enjoy. So it is a large and overwhelming task for me to envision a man that I would be willing to be less alone for...
So why do I keep searching for him? Looking for him? Waiting and hoping he will arrive?
I think because I am afraid that if he never comes that I am somehow less worthy. Less of a human being. Less...
I am not sure how my worth and being partnered became so interwoven and intertwined...but it did. Even if I love being alone, not being selected or picked or loved by another on an intimate and loving level leaves me feeling adrift, lost and unmoored. Like I need the love of another to anchor me to regular life.
Every once in awhile I feel like I am being led down a path that would lead me to some Buddhist monastery where I shave my head and go quiet. I cannot express how much I do not want that to be my life. I imagine no one really does...yet there are a lot of people who are led to such a path. And I believe, from what I have read, that once they just allow their future to become their present, they find peace and are aligned with their path. They see that their path is their life and are content.
Anyone that could look objectively at my life would know that I am nowhere close to that...however, I do fear not getting what I want. Being led to a destination that does not have true love as part of its path, scares me and makes me a little despondent.
I believe in it for others, why can’t I believe in it for myself?
I am not sure...I guess it has to do with humility and grace. Perhaps I lack the humility of being right sized - always over or under estimating my worth. Never landing on a middle place. Always and forever swinging to and fro on the vine of self importance.
I know that I have received grace - all one has to do is look at the life I started to live and then see the one I am living to see grace spilled all over my life. I get that.
I would be remiss if I did not mention that there is this part of me that finds being alone a kind of female anthem. A testament to womankind, making it on my own without a man a beacon for all those women who are loved less, taken for granted and marginalized. A solitary stand for our history of subrogation, possession and belittlement. If I were a really good woman, I might be able to stand on the single woman mountain top and proclaim it for my sisters...but I, if I am really honest, am not that brave.
Perhaps this is why I remain single. This belief that committing to another makes me less. The history of my partnered life has been that way. Being involved with a man has always meant a turning away from self. I dishonored me in large and small ways to enter and maintain those relationships. It wasn’t always the men that required that from me, often I willing lopped off large parts of myself to fit with a particular man. They didn’t even have to ask, I just did it because I judge the accommodation necessary for the relationship’s future.
Perhaps I am destined to remain alone until I can see what loving couples already know: to share your life with another makes you more, not less.
Perhaps it is this lesson, more than any other, that I have been most pigheaded and stupid about. I have always thought of myself as being more me in solitary form, allowing the man to add nothing to my spirit, character and life. Perhaps, this is why I have failed so often at relationships. Perhaps, this is why I am the last woman standing...
I look at my tribal sisters, all happily partnered with their guys. Their lives richer, fuller and more meaningful. These women capable and willing to be changed into something more by loving their men, not less as I have firmly believed. I look to them for a path through my own confusion. I look to them as teachers to guide me through the stubborn belief that I am the most me when in solitary form. That it is a dubious honor to be the last one standing single. Perhaps, I am finally ready to learn the lesson that alone is fine. Coupled is fine. Either is acceptable. What makes either choice more difficult is the stubborn refusal to see that it is hard to love either way. It takes commitment and sacrifice and a willingness to soften oneself, repeatedly. And that if you are willing to do that, you can become the better you because of the love you have for another...not in spite of it.
I can see I still have a lot to learn. Confirming, yet again, the universe knows what the fuck it is doing...so I will proudly hold the title of last woman standing. And I will watch and learn from my sisters and teachers who show me how to love a man and yourself at the same time. Perhaps, someday, I will be able to follow in their footsteps and become the better and bigger me. The me that can allow love to change me for the better.
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