Alone

I find myself increasingly longing for the alone time. Not that I don't want to be with Scott, of course, but after so many years of co-dependency, sometimes I don't feel quite all Me. It's okay to adapt to each other, make room for each other in each soul, but there's got to be some spot, preferably a comfortable, roomy one, where each of us are still the person we were, that we are, that we will be. I'm not sure Scott is ready to find his spot, he seems completely at ease just being with me and that's that. He does enjoy his alone time, the hours of which are few & far between since he works six days a week & then we spend Sundays together, but, as for me, I need a little time to myself more often than those Saturdays when Mom is busy & I'm left to my own devices. When I did the Barn Tour a month or two back, even tho' it was just a humble showcase of agriculture, it was all by myself. I navigated, decided where I would stop, what photos would be taken, where I would eat or if I would even eat at all. I was free to stop at a lonely crossroads & offer an uneaten sandwich half to a stray dog without any questions. There was no complaining because there was nobody to complain other than me, no indecision about what to do because I knew what my mission was & there wasn't anyone to distract me from it with demands of food or restrooms or just, "Why this way?" It was beautiful. I need stuff like that more often. I have my drive to & from work each day, which amounts to about 45 minutes per direction. On the way in I'm driving like a maniac to get here but I always take time to notice a redtail hawk or a deer or a particularly attractive vehicle, on the way home I can choose to take the standard route or I can take another road & see something different. Sometimes I stop at places, like a local Indian mound, or a scenic bridge, sometimes I get lost just to see where I end up. Unfortunately, those little moments are done until next year, when the clock once again gets turned forward and another hour of daylight is mine to discover. Now, I will only see that which is directly in front of me, visible in my headlight beams, and hopefully, it won't be a deer. When I get home, it'll still be the same thing - tidy up, clean up after the cats, chase the dog around the yard, wait for Scott & then the cooking (which, mind, he does help with the cleaning & the cooking lest I sound like a domestic servant).

I have a room, a room painted a sedate sage green with eye-catching white trim, lined with bookshelves filled with my books & other things. This room is peaceful to me - the single window looks out on our quiet street, and, the angle of the desk permits me to entirely block out the old couple's home across the street so that I only see the bend in the road and the park-like woodland of our neighbor beyond. I need to spend more time in this room. I need to sit here, by myself, with only my thoughts & a cat or three & the quiet company of the Big Dog, and think. Be. And then write it all down. Thus far there are no pictures hanging on the wall in this room and the desk, which is actually made up of two desks shoved together to make a corner desk, is dissatisfying, but I do find a certain joy just sitting in there, reading or staring out the window or just passing by the bookshelves & looking at the familiar titles. But writing does not come to me, even here. As superficial as it seems, I think that once I have the some of my photos up & my old bullfighting poster, I will feel more inspired.

Maybe I just need to refamiliarize myself with myself. Too much time has been spent catering to the co-dependency & I've lost much of myself, or at least it's been stowed away deep inside. Scott will have to understand. I've always been a loner, preferring, for the most part, to be by myself, in my own head, in my own space, doing my own thing. Having another human that requires attention during all my at-leisure hours is a strange thing, and I think I just stuffed all the Me Stuff into a little closet in my head. I'm an only child - my step-siblings didn't come until later & even they were far removed from me. I've never had to divide my time between anyone other than my close friends & my parents & even then, I could close my bedroom door & be by myself once again.

It could be the constant closeness that has driven it away, quashed it down, but before Scott, there was another boy, a lovely boy who I loved so hard & deep for so many years that when he removed himself from my world, I went into another much darker & ugly world. I lived in a broken down house, my roommate had moved out, I was alone, more alone than I had ever been or wanted to be, and the thought that this other boy didn't love me anymore, or wouldn't allow himself to because my beliefs were so alien to him & his God & his parents, that it nearly drove me crazy. Maybe it did. But somewhere, in that cess pool of dark emotions & black places, that Voice that I've always had, that came so freely whenever I bid it, disappeared. Leaving me with this stilted, unfamiliar tone that I cannot accustom myself to. It has been smoothed out over time, with the help of my old friend Stace coming back into my life & our constant notes, but it still doesn't feel totally like my old voice. Poems used to come to me, descriptive phrases that I was proud of, but no more.

But I think, if I could just regain some of that me-time, if Scott can agree to leave me to myself for a few hours each week, I might just be able to recoup some of what I've lost. Or at least re-learn that which I've forgotten. Something tells me he just might be willing to do that even if he doesn't fully understand it - he is a sensitive guy, but hopefully he can understand it's not him, it's just that I need to have some time where my thoughts are devoted to what's inside my head.

That's another thing with the Jordan trip - as much as I hate to leave him for these 2 weeks & as much as I'd like him along to share the experience, he just flat doesn't want to do it. I can't argue with that - travel has never been one of his dreams, which I find strange in itself, and I can't force my aspirations on him no more than he can convince me to like football & baseball. I'll be with my mom, who, tho' a constant source of irritating trivialities, understands me quite a bit. After all, I grew up with her, she knows what I came from & my moods as well as all the ugliness of that depressed period. She has encouraged my writing since I was very young & never put any sort of book out of reach no matter if it was beyond the comprehension of my age group or not. She also has been enlightened about the hibernation of my muse, and I can honestly tell it saddens her. This trip will be time for me to see things that inspire me, broaden my horizons, add a little more depth. And to grow a bit as my own person.

As for that dark period? I came out of it relatively unscathed - I think being slightly demented is a good thing - without benefit of any medications or counseling, just my own spirit rising up against the demons to say, "This is not me. I will not do this. I will not tolerate it." Only vague memories of the drunken, black thoughts linger, but the loss of my Voice is the thing that haunts me the most. Two years after the loss of my first love, I moved out of the dark, ugly void as well as the broken down house into a tidy, small & bright apartment. A few months after that, I met Scott. Any remnants of that bad time evaporated - I was delighted to have such a fantastic man in my life, someone who understood (and still does) me about as well as anyone can & who puts up with all my quirks & daily insanities. He has only a hazy knowledge of my depression - he struggled with his own anger & demons at one point & doesn't like to discuss any of it. Which is fine with me - things like that are best assigned to paper & then set on fire, but the memories remain regardless & the hope that such a thing won't return. And, if it does, I am prepared with the weapons to defeat it - courage, mental self-awareness, staunchness of soul, and the knowledge that I am Me and no one, no thing, can change that. If the ability to imagine, to dream & express it all eloquently returns, that's one more arrow in my quiver.

It took me a while to put all of these things together, to even be willing to admit that as much as I enjoy being married & with another human for the duration, thru thick or thru thin, I need to be Me & live a little outside the relationship & maintain that homey spot inside that is all Me.

Time for some mental housecleaning.

"Kick start the golden generator
Sweet talk but don't intimidate her
Can't stop the gods from engineering
Feel no need for any interfering
Your image in the dictionary
This life is more than ordinary
Can I get 2 maybe even 3 of these
Come from space
To teach you of the pleiades
Can't stop the spirits when they need you
This life is more than just a read thru."
----Red Hot Chili Peppers, "Can't Stop"