Here I go again...
I am not sure why it feels so good to me when I find words that just jump off the page for me. Words in other languages, words in my own, it really doesn’t matter. I just love words. And it feels like a particular life victory when I find one that really describes something I have been through, or a period of life that resulted in a painful lesson.
This is one of those words. It is German. And it talks about the freedom of being alone. The ability to do what you want. And I have experienced this so very many times in my life. And I love it. I love it so much that it encumbers and interferes with my ability to commit. I always feel like I am giving something up to be in a relationship. And, at least from my perception, relationships never give me enough to warrant the relinquishing the freedom I have while being single and alone.
I am not saying that relationships have no benefit. I am saying that I just haven’t experienced it ever being better. I can say without reservation that while some relationships have added a great deal to my life, when compared to all I get to experience and enjoy while single and alone, I think relationships fail every single time. Perhaps that is because I haven't had the “right” one yet. I think at 54 the window to that is closing rather rapidly. I know, I know you can meet the love of your life at 98. But at some point, don’t most of us just give up?
We either settle for the person that doesn’t light us up but doesn’t make us crazy either. Or we keep trying and failing and trying and failing until we either die or make a decision to just be done with the whole couple thing.
I think this concept is a lot about why I have been perpetually single in my life. I always feel like I am giving up something indispensable when I commit. Like I am cutting off a limb or something. I am not saying that is always asked of me, sometimes it has been, and I have only too willing to begin the amputation. But usually before too much damage is done, I stop the procedure and exit the relationship.
I am not sure I am ever going to be able to settle down. Thus torturing all of us equally. I can’t seem to stop dating but I can’t seem to really commit either. It is a quandry.
For the most part, I really love being alone. And I choose it over most anything else. But then there is this part of me that thinks that being alone is too easy. That if I tried to commit and make that work that is where I would really grow and change and develop. Truth be told it is really just a crap shoot. And I have somewhat resigned myself to the idea that I will do whatever work is in front of me - single work or couple work. It is just that the single work is way easier to do and be ok with than the couple work. And I guess, thinking it through, that is how it should be.
And really if you think about it, the only way you can really be storm free is to be alone. And even then, not sure about you, but I have a habit of creating my own fucking internal storm all on my own. So there is a gale of one that conjures beneath my shell and whips up a good wind and rain storm, threatening all that is good and holy. And that can happen on a stupid Saturday afternoon hike in the woods. I can just be out there in the world enjoying the fuck out of my sturmfrei and WHAMMO! The wind kicks up across my soul and before I know it, we are in CAT 5 hurricane conditions and everyone in a 20 mile radius is in peril. I don’t make up the rules, this is just how I am.
However, I will say that with every passing year my need for peace and ability to choose it increases. I become much more able and willing and interested in keeping that internal conflict storm on ice. I look at people now with more discernment and less hope. I see their perilousness and often just sidestep the whole endeavor. Not always, but way more often than I used to.
I think being alone and single and unattached has always made it feel like anything is possible. Whereas when I have married myself off to others, I feel like I have just eliminated a great deal of fun and experiences by limiting my choice to just the one person. I am not sure if I will ever be able to rectify this incongruence in my nature. I just am today giving it voice and space and owning that I struggle not to be free, but to be less free.
I think the whole of my life I have been searching for the person that makes me feel like either the freedom I am giving up is a great decision or that I don’t feel like I am really being asked to give up anything at all. And so far, I have yet to meet the man I couldn’t live without. There are very few whom I miss when they are gone. I instead resume the enjoyment of my aloneness. Being happy and content and basking in my own light. Perhaps I am just incredibly selfish and my life long struggle has been some misguided attempt to make myself less so. In reality, what I have mostly created is this same situation that requires my departure over and over and over again. And I am really unsure if it will ever be different for me.
And I suppose I am becoming more and more ok with that. The things I need from couple hood just don’t ever seem available to me. And it seems like awfully hard work for not so great payback. I know there are lots of people in this world who are happily coupled, supported and find their primary love relationship to be a never ending source of support and love. I just don’t have that as being my experience.
I do know that I enjoy being storm free. And the more time I spend outside the fray, the more I crave being outside the fray. And for me, that seems to coincide with being alone. Not what I would choose for myself, which explains all my futile attempts at partnership. But it is who and what I am, I suppose. I like to do what I want, when I want. And I have found that dragging you along for the journey only encumbers my peace, pace and destination.
Maybe one day, all those attempts will pay off and I will find a man that calms my internal storms and rides into my life on an ever loving tide of calm, peacefulness. Chances are I would find him boring and toss him back into the rising tide. That is just how dumb I really am. But I have seen great sweeping change in my life. And so I know that what feels impossible today, is not. I have changed. I continue to change. And in that progress I have found entire rooms of myself that I didn’t previously know existed.
So I will keep going. Trying and failing and retreating to the sturmfrei spaces within myself. And forward progress will be made.
Again.
Still
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