Why flinging yourself off the ledge is a good thing.
I have written, in the past, about how I truly enjoy spending time alone.
This is not to say that I don’t enjoy the company of others, or that I don’t have genuine interest in people. I thoroughly enjoy time with friends and acquaintances alike, and I’d say that other human beings interest me more than almost anything else.
These things, enjoying time with others as well as time alone, are not mutually exclusive. While I like people, I need a considerable amount of time to myself. I always have, and I always will. There is a sense of overload if I’m around too many people at once or for too long. I literally require the decompression that being alone brings.
I revel in being isolated in quiet, adore to be wrapped in nothing but my thoughts. There is a level of reflection and philosophy that I am incapable of reaching in any way other than alone in stillness. On the other hand, I delight in pounding my brain with loud music and smiling at a room that holds only me while I assault my surroundings with my interpretations of the lyrics and melodies. This is like medicine for my soul. I need it as much as I regularly need to feel sunshine on my skin.
So yes, I like to be alone. I like to have my thoughts to myself, to be able to control my environment, to be the master of my domain at any given moment. I am a hair away from saying that my sanity actually hinges on my having time alone regularly.
And so it feels odd to say that I’m horribly afraid of being alone.
I don’t think I’ve ever really admitted that. I’m afraid to truly stand on my own. Confessing that is difficult for me. I have always valued strength and independence, wanted those qualities for myself. Yet I feel as if I hold my head high on the outside, while in reality, I often tremble and cower inside myself.
Many years ago, fearing that he would never marry me, I suggested to my long time boyfriend that we part ways. He had given me some ominous answers to some very pointed questions, and my heart was registering some unwelcome and heartbreaking truths.
I told him that I felt I had lost myself in him. It would have been unfair of me to blame him for that, and I most certainly didn’t, but I had allowed myself to be dependent on him for so much, practical as well as emotional, for so long. I’d poured myself into him. I always knew I shouldn’t but I felt powerless to stop doing it.
When I realized that he would likely one day need to flee the suffocation of my pressing need, that he would surely turn and walk from me eventually, I panicked. I felt the crushing fear of falling alone on that impending day. How could I protect myself? How could I learn to be stronger?
I had to force a situation that would make me let go and step away. Inside, I knew I had to take a leap, to make myself learn how to stand alone. Jumping, after all, always seems easier than falling.
It is not. Falling happens. Jumping takes courage.
He did not disagree with me that we should part ways. Even though it was my suggestion, I have always been pained by that.
And so, what happened then, after separating myself painfully from my best friend of 7 years? Did I spend a good deal of time alone afterwards, learning to trust my ability to be an independent person? No. I lacked the courage to jump.
I am so ashamed of that.
I immediately started dating the man who would later become my husband. I leaned on him as hard as he would let me. He let me lean in all the way. My ex told me in a sad tone, after learning I was seeing someone else so soon, “You are dependent. You just go from one man to the next, always looking for someone to take care of you because you’re afraid.”
I was stung by his words, angered. I dismissed them as jealousy.
The kicker was that I secretly knew he was right.
I held my head high and moved on. I said to myself that I couldn’t walk from the love John was offering me, that I couldn’t allow myself to pass up a chance at happiness. I told myself I’d regret it mightily one day if I did.
Those things are true, I was not lying to myself.
But the other truth, the one I’ve never admitted outside my own head is that I was also afraid to do what I had set out to do. I was frightened to stand completely alone in the world, daring it to knock me down.
“What if it really does?” I thought. I wasn’t confident enough in myself to believe I could get back up.
Was it a mistake that I did not take that time and learn the value of being strong in myself? In a way, yes, very much.
You see, it is not so much that I am truly weak, or unable to stand on my own, to be a strong person and take care of myself. Even through my fear there is a knowledge in my core that I am strong enough. Fear has a way of making you near-sighted, though. I am often unable to see my core. I believe the lies that my insecurity whispers so close to my trembling ears in moments of doubt.
I do not regret loving my husband. And how could I regret a union that brought me the joy that is my son? I do not. This is my life. I take my past and wrap it like a bow around the person I have become. I cannot change my past, but I can most certainly examine it, always reflecting on where I have been, learning, and watching where I am headed. I am the constant analyzer, if you will.
The mistake was not that I allowed myself to love and be loved. That is never a mistake.
The harm was in not allowing myself a chance to see the living proof of my own strength. If I had jumped, I’d know for sure that I can fly, and that would have banished my fear of falling infinitely.
Today’s post is my answer to Broccoli, a writing challenge at {W}rite-of-Passage.
The following people took the challenge, too.
25 comments
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Zoeyjane
Beautiful. And so true and identifiable.
Also, who did your theme, baby? It’s gorgeous.
.-= Zoeyjane´s last blog ..{w}rite of passage: on what winds bring =-.
Lotus, aka Sarcastic Mom
Thank you! I used this theme: http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/fusion and edited this and that to put my spin on it.
Twitter: LotusCarroll
Pgoodness
Lotus, this is beautiful and so honest. I am very much like you, it seems…the reveling in aloneness…it is what keeps me going.
Twitter: Pgoodness
Al_Pal
Wow. Really, really powerful.
Great entry.
SO, so thankful that I had my year-plus of “so happy to be single and OMG no interest in dating whatsoever” for the last year of college and a bit after. I *really* needed it. I had allowed myself to be dependent, when before I’d been anything but.
Thank you for reminding me how fortunate I am to have had that time.
Twitter: Al_Pal
Dalia
You certainly know how to express through words. A truly amazing post. Thank you for sharing.
Karin aka perpstu
Fantastic. However, I think you did jump. You could have taken your ex’s words to heart and walked away from John to prove him wrong. You didn’t. Sometimes the greatest leap we can take is having faith in staying the course.
Beautifully written. Thank you for letting us all in.
.-= Karin aka perpstu´s last blog ..Breakfast in 100 Words =-.
Twitter: perpstu
Lotus, aka Sarcastic Mom
A lovely perspective (helps me save face a little! hah.). Thanks, Karin.
Twitter: LotusCarroll
Mrs. Flinger AKA: Your Beesh
Powerful as always. ANd I said this to you before and I”ll say it again, you’re amazing because you let us in. You ARE independent, but you open up to others and that is why we love you so much.
There is never fear in love, but evaluating the past is good. IT’s growth. Wisdom. And it powers you forward.
Mucho love all over the place, hun. xoxo
.-= Mrs. Flinger AKA: Your Beesh´s last blog ..Delurking Day twenty-ten =-.
Kelly
I completely identify with you and often wish I could go back to the few years just before I met my husband so that I can erase that string of emotional dependencies and be simply myself. I also agree with Karin that trusting yourself and letting in something good is often much harder than walking away.
.-= Kelly´s last blog ..Mind of a criminal =-.
Evan
I understand that everyone needs time for themselves and that every now and then, people should look deeper and reflect on what they’ve become for the past few days, or weeks, or weeks or months, or years. But i guess nothing’s going to stop us from being with the ones we love.
Meg at Demanding Joy
I too seek out solitude but I fear not having someone to come back to. I got married five minutes after I turned 22 and although I have never regretted my marriage, like you, I wonder what kind of life I could have made for myself on my own. Life is choices I suppose.
Thank you so much for such a beautiful and honest post.
.-= Meg at Demanding Joy´s last blog ..Get Organized for 2010! (part 3) =-.
Michelle
Beautifully written, as always. I also like my solitude, helps me stop being overwhelmed at times. (I do love my job, which involves a lot of people, and my family, but also love being able to refresh and re-energise in the quiet times.)
Also loving your new look.
elizabethsheryl
I know that *everyone* says this, and so it seems cliche, and I’m a lurker mainly on your blog, but I REALLY think we have a lot in common and I could have written most of this myself. I too need alone time to decompress, and most of that time is sitting listening to music, writing etc.
I was 19 and jumped into a relationship with someone, red flags and warnings everywhere and we got married..I do not regret letting myself love him or even getting married, but we have just split up because we weren’t right for each other, but I remember thinking that I should have lived on my own for awhile and been my own person first. But (and its an important But), you can’t time love. You also spend time without your husband, so while you may be dependent on him financially, you are strong enough that you don’t need him with you at all times and to make all decisions, so don’t be too hard on yourself.
lceel
But you don’t understand, Lotus. People fear being alone because they were never meant to be alone. Human Beings are social animals – it goes against every instinct we own to be isolated and alone. We fear isolation. We’re SUPPOSED to fear isolation. By that same token, knowing there is companionship and support nearby, knowing that no matter where you are you have others to reach out to, allows you to take advantage of your ‘alone’ time – you may be ‘alone’, but you are not isolated and lonely.
Ask any man who’s ever been in prison – the worst part of prison – that which is most feared in prison – is solitary confinement.
.-= lceel´s last blog ..Wordless Wednesday – Juxtaposition =-.
Twitter: lceel
patois
I was thinking along the same lines as Karin. (Sure, easy for me to say, all this time AFTER her comment.)
And analyzing is all well and good. There’s no harm in that ever. Just don’t let the analysis turn into beating yourself up over something long over and done.
Gorgeously written, too, BTW.
Corrie
I get this, big time. The feelings you have so eloquently expressed are an eerie echo of my own, actually.
Lovely post.
mark
Nice one. Lovely post mate. Thanks for sharing
Mishi
I love you.
Dawn
Imma in yer comments.
.-= Dawn´s last blog ..The quilt and the chair =-.
Anita Hamilton
Oh my gosh, i so totally get you and can relate so much, its kinda scary. I love this post.
Courtney
I think a lot of us wonder what the balance is between being a “me” and being an “us.”
Chefdruck
What a powerful post. It really echoes a lot of what I’ve been going through right now in my move to a new state where we know no one. I always considered myself a person comfortable with being alone, but am now so incredibly lonely that I’m going out of my mind. It’s very scary to have to listen to yourself and all that’s going on inside.
.-= Chefdruck´s last blog ..Learning to Eat my Inner Broccoli =-.
Loralee
I am beginning to think that though our lives are very different we understand a hell of a lot about each other.
I love you, friend.
xo
.-= Loralee´s last blog ..Blogging through fear. =-.
notsojenny
“I take my past and wrap it like a bow around the person I have become.”
that line is perfection. it completely encompasses how i feel about life. i just can’t imagine where i’d be today without the mistakes i’ve made that led me to who i am now.
perfection.
.-= notsojenny´s last blog ..workin on my fi’ness =-.
Kellee
I think we all feel like this at times. Good luck on your journey. <3
.-= Kellee´s last blog ..Finally Some Photos =-.