Thoughts of LoWriter

Packing Up My Single Life

My living room looks like a combat zone right now. I am trying to do a little packing. It's not that I want to live like a squatter in my own house until May, but I do not want to be nuts this spring, either. (I will be nuts, anyway, but you take what precautions you can.)

I have not moved since June of 2002, and this place and I have seen a lot of memories. Most of them are good, and I am a little sorry to leave, especially now that the sing-along-dance-party downstairs has moved out, and I can hear myself think again.

And I have to say that it's making me a little nostalgic. It's not that I've actually packed much. I really have only packed two boxes. But they sit in my dining room mocking me, demanding that I pack more, demanding that I clean out my closet and put them away. And just lately, I had this great idea for my dining room. Namely, that I never use it for dining, and it would be better used as a writing room. I want to get a leather club chair and one of those super cool low sitting tables like the one Carrie on Sex and the City has in her apartment.

But then I would have to move it in six months, and there's no place to put it, so there's not much point to doing that. I wonder why that didn't occur to me four years ago? Probably because at that point, I thought I needed a dining room to impress a man. :) (It turns out that I do not.)

Don't get me wrong. I'm very happy that Ben and I are getting married. I can think of nothing else I'd rather do right now. I love Ben with all my heart, and we are very happy with each other. We make each other laugh. We play games like we are children, which makes me happy. I am very comfortable with him, and I am very surprised by him all at the same time. Every day, I cannot wait to see him. I cannot wait to see what we will see today.

But I have also been very happy as a single person, and I think that deserves some credit and some closure; thus, the entry I am currently writing.

I have been happy to be on my own, to have lived alone for so many years. I have enjoyed my single life. I am glad that I will have a year to say goodbye to it because I have loved it and made good friends with it. You have to be very comfortable with yourself to have lived alone as long as I have. The first year was very hard on me, but since then, I have grown stronger and used to myself. I know who I am because of the time I've spent alone. There are few surprises left in me that I do not know about. I feel comfortable in my own skin. I have not been sorry to have been single and living alone.

If I have enjoyed being single, I have enjoyed dating more, which has been my criteria for dating for the last five years. My motto had become that whoever I would date would have to make me at least as happy or happier than I was on my own because if he didn't, what would be the point? I am happier with Ben than I am on my own. I am happier than I ever thought I could be.

From the time I was a child, I have been saying that I will never marry. (Literally. I used to tell my mom this when I was three or four.) When I imagined my old age, I imagined myself alone, possibly with a cat or 16 (and it did not make me particularly sad most of the time). When people ask me about what my dream wedding always was, I have to stare at them. I did not plan to have a wedding. I did not plan to get married at all. I wanted to, but I planned my life as though I would not because I believe that you play life based on the cards you hold, not the ones you hope the dealer's got. I always assumed that if I did get married, it would happen late in my life. I imagined getting married quiety at a courthouse somewhere near my retirement home.

I never expected to find my soul mate. I didn't think I had one.

And because of my lack of planning, I have accumulated a massive amount of STUFF. There is STUFF EVERYWHERE. I have stuff to pack and stuff to sell and stuff to donate and stuff to throw away. I have stuff I didn't even know I had. My stuff has stuff, that's how much stuff I have.

I look forward with hope to my married life; please don't get me wrong. But as I sit here amidst the mess, I can't help but be just a little afraid, just a little sad. I can't help but be just a little afraid to leave the known for the unknown. This life I am heading into is unexpected, and I feel I am unprepared. And I know it will be hard because what isn't?

And sometimes, I am just a little sad that one chapter of my life is closing even though I know that the next one is opening.

And sometimes I am so excited that I can hardly breathe.

Posted by LoWriter at November 10, 2008 11:53 PM