I was talking with my literary partner-in-crime on Sunday night about a scene she was struggling with in her book. It was the "morning after" and she wasn't sure how she should go about writing it. For about the next half-hour or so, we walked through it and I offered ideas which seemed to work really well for what she had in mind.
In order for me to get there, though, I had to do the writing equivalent of "method acting" and immerse myself in that scenario for a bit so I could get the full breadth of what she was trying to accomplish. I will admit, it can be fun to do that at times because being able to slip into the skin of a character and figure out what he or she would do in a particular point of a story is crucial to what we as writers are ultimately trying to do.
But coming back out of it, I also realized just how much I miss having someone to wake up next to.
As much as going to sleep has become much easier for me in the last few months, there is always a moment just before I finally black out where I find myself curled up in my sheets and wish it was an actual person I had my arm around and not my body pillow. And when I wake up in the morning, I have the same moment where as I'm coming to, I'd find that same person still sleeping quietly next to me.
I always loved that feeling because I don't know if there's a better sense of belonging than being with the person you care most about in what may seem like trivial moments, but they are actually rather intimate.
To be clear, this isn't about sex. I've been living like a monk for the last three years and I'm not in a hurry on that front. This is about the difference between being alone and loneliness, because being a monk is not all it's cracked up to be.
Because I had yesterday off, I decided to go back to the Portland Japanese Gardens for the first time in what had to be five years. Since they offered free admission, it was also a hard offer to turn down, but this being the era of social media, I of course posted my destination on Facebook. A few people chimed in on it and the one that stuck out was that it "sounded like a perfect day."
I'll admit, I enjoyed it because I got outside, got some fresh air and had fun with my camera. It was a good day and I'm truly glad I did it. But what would've made it a perfect day was if I'd had someone to spend it with.
As I said a while back, I truly believe we all have the right to find that someone who we can love and be loved by in return, and I'd like to think that there's even someone out there for me. It doesn't mean there actually is, though.
Even with everything I've done in the last few months, there still remains the fact that I have a lot of work to still do, and the last thing I want is to saddle someone else with all that. I made the mistake of doing that once already and having that fall apart was bad enough.
One of the worst traits of a perfectionist is that we keep telling ourselves that we're "not there yet" when it comes to where we ultimately want to be. We keep kicking the can down the road and figure that we'll eventually get there without realizing that we're actually still walking in place, because we don't want to take that first step out of our comfort zone.
Right now, it feels so much safer telling myself that it is okay to be alone. That after a failed marriage and an even more failed attempt at a new relationship that maybe it's better for me right now that I focus on just being comfortable in my own world and not complicating things by trying to find someone else who can handle everything that my life is. Because I know I'm asking a lot of that person, whoever they are, and not everyone can handle that.
Knowing what my routines and lifestyle are, I often ask the question of who in their right mind would want to step into this? Considering the toll it's taken on me, I can't imagine there are a whole lot of women out there willing to try when there are a whole lot more men who don't have that same baggage.
I get it, because there's some days where even I can't handle it and this is my life. I don't have the luxury of a day off from that.
It's those days where I find myself feeling very lonely. It's those days where carrying on alone is not as easy as it seems.
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