mental housekeeping
Re: So, now that you’re alone and single, what the fuck are you going to do with your life?
People told me, and I didn’t listen.
That should be the title of my memoir.
People told me to be honest from Day One of my first marriage, but I didn’t listen.
(Of course, I am myself, who else am I?!) That didn’t work out too well.
People told me learning to be alone is important, but I didn’t listen.
(Of course, I can be by myself, I said. I am doing it every day on the toilet!) Turns out, not just.
Now, when I have nowhere else to run, there’s just this.
The truth. Me. Warts and all. The person in the mirror who looks vaguely familiar but is also a complete stranger.
I used to run away, that’s why. It’s the oldest story in the book: I drank, I got high, I worked out way more than I should have had, then I binge-ate my entire fridge, and then I had sex with people I didn’t like.
Most importantly, on a larger scale, I ran away from myself by always babysitting my girlfriends. (Or was it the other way around, and it was they who babysat me? Hmmm….)
My biography to date is marked by co-dependency like lilies in a pond: I jumped from my family’s nest into the dorm room, then from relationship to relationship, until, well, now.
Uh, no, scratch that. There was one moment, exactly three years ago, when I lived alone in a Moscow Radisson hotel room, a bottle of Sauvignon in hand, unable to withstand the feeling, chugging the entire bottle in an hour before going outside into the freezing Moscow winter, just to find someone to hold me.
A couple of months later, one of such “someones” – she was then the girlfriend of a friend – became my wife. That friend and I never spoke again.
Now I am alone again, and I am still not sure: is it the worst or the best thing that has happened to me? The “someone” who became my wife turned out to also be someone who didn’t want to be with me or face the reality of who I was. But that’s not fair to her. After all, can I face the reality of who I am?
These days, at night, when all possible “falling asleep methods” are exhausted – a cocktail of an old episode of Friends, 2mg of melatonin, a hot bath, a pot of peppermint tea, and an open window – I lay there, staring at the darkness where the ceiling is supposed to be, finally facing that, whatever that is, what everyone is talking about.
People have various stories about “facing their demons”. In my experience, the mind just feels like an inbox full of unread emails.
And so I lay there, staring at those emails, each screaming with its urgency and importance, and I am overwhelmed, paralysed, unsure where to begin. Should I open one? Which one? The one that screams at me it’s urgent or the one I had received first, or maybe the one I’d received last?
Hey, look! There’s the one titled “Re: So, now that you’re alone and single, what the fuck are you going to do with your life?”. There’s the “Fwd: Are you bisexual? Asexual? Wait, no, maybe you’re just looking for a label to gain attention to yourself and not face the fact that you just have intimacy issues!”. There’s the nagging “Where Will You Live This Summer?” subscription I can’t get rid of. There’s the never-ending spam thread of [URGENT] You *really* need to make money this year.
Staring at those emails, by which I mean thoughts, of course, I realise the true reason they’re all unread and urgent and resemble a heap one can’t possibly rummage through.
It’s because I never opened them.
All my adult life, which hasn’t been long, I’ve never answered the questions that my mind asked. It was easier to let them be and focus on caring for someone else.
It’s always easier to take care of someone else. After all, someone else is not you. The stakes are, well, pretty much zero.
Which is to say, do you want to move in with me?
I get it, I know: just because you avoid answering questions about your life doesn’t mean they stop coming.
And just because you pretend they’re not there doesn’t mean they’re not there.
They accumulate. Until you get a notification saying the inbox is full, usually in the form of a breakdown or a full-blown panic attack.
One can’t escape oneself; sooner or later, we all face our demons, which is what we call our true selves. Better sooner rather than later, but either way, it’s an essential process and better sometime rather than never.
People told me and I didn’t listen.
It’s uncomfortable as fuck; it’s painful as hell; sometimes the loneliness and the uncertainty and lack of a witness to your existence feels like a million knives stabbing in the chest (especially during the weekend when everyone is partying and you’re sitting there all alone watching fucking Netflix!).
But–
It’s for the best, I am sure.
I cannot prove this, but I want to believe this: if you stick it out, there’s light on the other side.
That light is knowing how to trust yourself, be alone, be self-dependent, self-centred, and even (hey, Emma Watson!) self-partnered.
Because some things, like unwanted chores, just have to be done.
I hate cleaning my kitchen but even more than that, I hate living in shit. Something has to give.
Because let’s face it.
Until you’re entirely comfortable with yourself and answer all those “unread emails”, nobody will be perfect for you. You’ll damage relationships by drawing more from them than you give to them. You’ll get in emotional debt. You’ll seek validation and justification in all the wrong places and ignore the only person who’ll be with you until the end – yourself.
So.
Perhaps just because this time is unpleasant doesn’t mean it’s useless. Perhaps the time you spend alone is a time you can dedicate to mental housekeeping. Take one question, one aspect of life, look at it, and attempt to answer, put it back, and take another.
It’s a long and challenging process, but it should be worth it. Right?
Because – let me get all spiritual here, bear with me – a new person is waiting on the other side.
A new you.
A you that will tell someone less experienced how they should be honest from Day One in their relationships and how important it is to live alone.
Not that they will listen.
If you liked this, support my caffeine intake by buying me a cuppa here. You can also ask a question there, which I’ll try to answer in future posts.
Serge, sounding like an old Grandma, which technically I am :) , you are still pretty young to be trying to deal with all of this huge "email" list of thoughts and issues at once. I still keep most of my stuff locked in a box which I only occasionally open to pull out one of these at a time to work on. Don't beat yourself up so hard, your writing is superb and like the rest of us you are human and thus prone to many mistakes.....we only really learn by making them and working through the consequences. Workaholism and caretaking are superb ways to avoid thinking too much about self and life, take it from an expert who has NEVER lived alone or even stayed alone for longer than a day! You are doing a great job in a very dark period of life, both personally and, sadly, historically .....keep writing, keep going, and things will move forward and get better I promise, just try to be kind to yourself . Sending a hug and many thoughts Alison