Single, and loving it. Mostly (29/29)

this is my last post in the February challenge, and because today is the 29th of February (with all of the connotations that this special leap-year day involves), I have been thinking about my past relationship, thinking about love and life, and thinking of the future. I started writing this post some time before Christmas, so in some ways this is a long-term view

I’m still getting used to the status of ‘not married any more’. It’s a big change, especially when that change creeps up on you from behind; ambushes you. Everything has gone from that ‘two-person universe’ that my body and soul inhabited 24/7. It’s a shock, when the world gets torn in two.

All of my values – and comforts – have been taken away from me. Everything that was in my environment suddenly disappeared. But I’m getting over the shock. I am learning to live in my new world.

I recognise that I’m still healing, still going through some kind of ‘getting over it’ process. But I also recognise that I am dealing with the emotional fall-out far better than some people do. I’ve turned myself around, after the initial plunge in to a world of deep crapness, much quicker than I could have expected.

So, as I am probably still healing myself, maybe I’m not really in the right place to write this piece, yet. But I’ll have a go. I’ll try and give you an insight to where my logic is, right now.

Being single has its advantages. And being single has its disadvantages.

The list of advantages and disadvantages fall in to two categories: the routine, boringly prosaic, and the softer, less tangible aspects of day-to-day living.

Routine household tasks such as cooking, cleaning, washing-up, laundry, and doing the garden, all leap easily to mind, as every-day tasks.

In terms of household jobs, there have been slight adjustments. I do the cooking, when I remember to eat, but I always did that anyway.

 

 

And I do the washing-up, but I always did that too.

 

 

 

 

But now I sort the laundry, load the machine and hang the washing out to dry afterwards. These are small tasks that she used to do, small tasks that I now own. I don’t do the ironing. I pay Chris to do that for me. She is excellent.

But the larger ‘cleaning the house’ was Soph’s OCD-related job. Every Saturday morning she would push me out of the house for a couple of hours. Whilst I was up to the stables, she would strip off (literally) and blitz the house from top to bottom. When I got home the house would be clean and fresh-smelling, she would be showered, dressed, and beaming in a satisfied manner at having done a job that ticked her OCD-boxes.

I can’t find the time for that kind of two-hour splurge, and it would be poor time-management of me to even try.

The best way for me to keep on top of the cleaning, is to take a small amount of time each day, and pick one or two jobs off the ‘Cleaning To Do list’.

 

 

Yes, this does mean that I do a little cleaning on most days.

 

But keeping the chores short and manageable is a small price to pay. Having a big blitz once a week, is not something my diary can afford.

 

 

 

Juggling domestic duties is a fraction of the picture, obv.

I thoroughly enjoy not having the television on. I have never been married to the box, but switching the television on as a default action has, I’ll admit, always struck me as a little odd. These days the TV only gets switched on when I want to watch something specific.

 

 

My default action, in these brave new days of singledom, involves music. I have bought a new iPod docking station. It has excellent audio qualities. I love the way music now fills the house.

 

 

 

Another significant change is in the way the single me behaves.

I have begun to stretch my wings and enjoy my new-found independence. I have made a conscious decision that This Is My Life. I don’t need to ask about anyone else’s thoughts or feelings. I also don’t need to ask anyone whether they would like to do something, a random thing that has just flitted across my mind.

Questions such as ‘what shall I cook this evening?’ (or even ‘shall I cook this evening?’), or ‘I fancy going to the cinema this weekend just to watch some rubbish, what shall I choose?’; small questions like these I now answer, without even opening my mouth.

I will admit that there are gaps. Sometimes a yawning chasm of utter loneliness will open up and I feel myself pulled towards it, by some kind of tractor-beam of despair.

But I have friends. I have good friends – in both the real and the virtual world – and they are a wonderful source of support and comfort for those occasional patches of emptiness.

I shall write more about my friends, and name names, on another day.

I can also do random things, like drive up to the Scottish borders for an overnight stay, on little more than a whim, to sort out some critical IT issues for a business.

To avoid any misunderstanding, I need to pause here to make one thing crystal clear. Being married to Soph would not stop any of these things from happening. It’s just that I am now in a place where I don’t need to consider anyone else; where I don’t need to think about the feelings of another person, before I do something. And I don’t need to think about the feelings of another person before I don’t do something.

 

I am at the centre of my universe.

This is a place that used to be occupied by someone other than me; a gestalt of two living organisms used to occupy this place.

Now it’s where I live.

*I* live…

But, on the other hand, there are things that I miss; that I would like to have back.

I miss the hugs.

I miss the cuddles.

I miss the kisses and I miss the toe-curlingly excellent snogs.

I miss loving.

I miss being loved.

Those little touches of affection that communicate beyond words; the hand resting on my leg that says ‘this means more than I like you’? I miss receiving those.

I miss giving them.

Having someone here, someone who loves me, someone who laughs with me? And at me? And who talks with me about all manner of random things? I miss these things too.

And falling asleep, every night, spooning?

 

 

 

I miss this.

 

 

 

I look at the balance sheet; the list of pros and cons, the every-day changes and the softer, more emotional wins and losses.

And I make a judgement about where I am.

A judgement of the present, not a judgement of the future.

It is easy, from my emotionally-involved position, to look around me and say I would not want anyone to go through the things I have gone through.

The emotional cost of getting to this place of understanding has been terrible; a series of pains and anguishes beyond all description. More than emotion has died in this house, in the last few months. Trust has gone, too.

But, as my grief for this dead relationship wanes, and as I grow more confident about being the individual *me*, in this new state of singledom, I take a look around the landscape and I think…

‘I would have preferred to get here under different circumstances….

‘But now that I’m here?

‘Yeah, this will do.

‘For now’.