Independent Dependent

Day 5: Single Alone and Happy 

Some of these topics are things I would never choose or even imagine to write about. I guess that’s a good thing? It’s definitely bringing my blog some random topics. Due to posting every single day, I have been doing less editing than ever, and becos usually most of my editing is focused on my wording and thoughts (as opposed to spelling, grammar and punctuation), you’re getting my thoughts uncensored. This is terrifying for me.

Some Dictionary Definitions of Single

1. an individual person 
2. only one

A Saying as a Springboard for my own Thoughts

There’s a saying that goes something like this:

To have a good relationship, you need to know how to be alone first. 

There is some truth to that, although it may not it’s not universally true. Basically, I can only speak from my experiences so I might be biased on this topic. 

And before I go any further, I want to make this clear. I speak from the perspective of marriage becos that’s where I am right now, building a semi-new marriage. But I think that most if not all of these musings can be applied to almost any relationship, and, in fact, most of these things are things I learned before I got married. 

Learning to be Single, my Journey

I think I’ve written some about this before, a couple years ago maybe, when I was going through it.

I grew up with varying amounts of sisters, spent time at HH surrounded by a dozen other girls and up to 4 dozen children, and then moved to Saskatchewan alone. I didn’t live alone for any amount of time, but I did spend a lot of time by myself in the first months I lived here. And I hated it, at least at first. I knew that I was not the kind of person who was meant to do anything without a big or little sister or a friend beside me. But I learned. I learned how to go shopping by myself. I learned how to get dressed without asking my sisters’ opinion, although that is something I still really miss. I learned how to make decisions alone, go to church and sit alone (surrounded by strangers), I learned to go to social events alone, to meetings alone. You get the picture. 

Since then, I’ve started to not only tolerate, but actually enjoy being alone. When I taught school, I revelled in the hour between when  I got home from school and BTT got home from work and the days I didn’t get that, I’m pretty sure I was a lot more difficult to live with. This has helped me cope with the different scenarios life has given me. Only after experiencing this stage of my life, can I understand others who need alone time. I’ve been there. 

Being Single and Married, in Practice

From the mundane evenings spent home alone after a I have to go on a tow so I’ll only be home at 10pm call from my husband, to leaving my husband for the mundane evening at home to clean up supper while I rush off to school board meetings, to going to visit my family solo and many other things, life sometimes gives me things I have to do without my husband. Alone. Singly. On the other hand, I do still need people around me every day. I feel like me, I’ll never struggle with being too single; that’s just not who I am. When in a crowd, I’m always going to be scanning faces for that one familiar face, I’m always going to feel better when I’m sitting, if not beside my lifeline or in view of him, then at least by some familiar face. Through the adjustments of joining a new family and community, at times my husband almost despaired at my clinginess. Little did he know that if he had met me even a year earlier I would’ve been a lot worse. 

A Few Last Musings on Variants of Depend 

Like in everything else in life, there’s  a fine line of independence, in marriage and in any relationship. I absolutely know that I’m still learning where that line is. I need to know how to be single/ alone/ independent, but I also need to know how to collaborate. The words dependent (not single)  and independent (single) share a root word, depend. Is this a coincidence, or not? Today, I think not. I think it’s symbolic: I need to be both.