Alone

I have been reading some of the blogs that I follow this morning... more and more I am finding that I am getting back into my old routine. For most of the summer since Sir Arsewipe left I wasn't able to concentrate on anything and I wasn't able to focus or move on because I was so consumed with the big "D" and knowing that his Arseholeness had dumped me so unceremoniously. But our move back home to Nfld. Is slowly turning my mind to other things and more and more I am feeling like my old self... my sense of humour has not yet returned and I miss that so if you see my sense of humour give it a kick in the arse and tell it I need it back. Because I am able to be more myself, I am able to take pleasure in the things that I always used to again... at least sometimes. I still cannot sit through wedding scenes in movies and even love scene somehow disturb me. I have to get up and leave, usually going to the kitchen to cook or clean or do something physical.

One of the blogs that I was reading this morning was talking about travel as a way of broadening your connection with those of other cultures. She talked about a connectedness between people based on similar experiences, relating a story about how she used the wrong kind of plug in her hair dryer while traveling in Europe and in so doing, inadvertently shorted out the electricity in the inn in which she was staying. When the inn keeper came running up the stairs to see what had happened they both looked at each other and said at the same time, "kaput", meaning that the power had gone out due to her mistake. The fact that Kaput meant the same thing in both of their languages gave them an understanding that might not otherwise have been there.

Essentially we go through our lives alone. This has been a consuming knowledge for me in the last few years that no matter how connected you feel to someone else there are always parts of their mind and soul that you can never reach... or at least if you reach them you never know if you have. It has been resoundingly driven home to me in the last little while how true this is since I had no idea how far removed from me Sir Arsewipe had become. You are born alone and you die alone, because these are things that people cannot do with you. Each and every one of comes into this world alone.... we go through this world seeking to make connections as best we can... always drawn to others if we are right in the head because the essence of us is seeking to be connected to another.

I watched the movie "Alone In The Wilderness" which chronicles the life of Dick Proenneke who spent the last 35 years of his life in the wilderness of Alaska alone because he wanted to see if he could manage it. His story has intrigued me like no other. I wondered if it was possible for a woman to survive on her own as he did.

Women have it drilled into their heads from the time that they are very young that they must rely on a man to be successful and able. I see that as very unfortunate since it has been my experience that women are quite capable of doing for themselves without men... yes sometimes it takes creative thinking to do some of the things that men would normally do, but when has that ever stopped a woman?  At one point Sir Arsewipe said that he felt that I was with him not because I loved him but because of what he could do for me. Needless to say I was horrified that he felt that way. I wondered how I could have portrayed such a wrong image of how I felt. But it is the alone-ness that I was talking about earlier... the unconnected-ness that we always feel that I think is at the base of such feelings. We are never able to see into the hearts of others and it is so important to portray the feelings that you have correctly. I thought about what Sir Arsewipe said and I felt so bad that he had thought so little of me that he could think such a thing... but then he has been thinking these thoughts about me far longer than I realized and he has come to terms with what he thought was reality long before I ever came to that point. One thing is for sure, Sir Arsewipe and I are wholly unconnected now.

The alone-ness of my future is what scares me more than anything... I feel like Dick Proenneke entering the challenge of a wilderness complete with no relief in sight.  When I speak of alone-ness I know that there are so many people who are willing to help me but there is a difference between the fellowship of friends and the fellowship of soul mates and therein lies the problem. I do not have a person that I can say I can completely rely on. There are more things than physical things which I will face as I go forward into this new future. There are all the things that life dishes out to you as you move through this world. There are losses of family members and illness and empty nest syndrome which you look to your spouse to be your rock.  When you divorce the person who is moving on finds that with the person that they are moving on with... the person who gets dumped is left bereft of that kind of support.

So I move into this new future with aging parents and children who are on the brink of their own lives and I realize that the loyalty which should be mine is not there and I am truly alone in this world. Those of us who find ourselves single are taken for granted... we are expected to just do it... and we do do it... but it is a harsh reality to not have the support that so many take for granted.

I will go into this future alone and as I was when I was born and as I will be when I die, I will survive on my own... alone.

If you take anything with you from my story take this... make all the connections you can in this life because even though we are ultimately alone... it is good to be connected to as many others as you can be in what ever way you can be. Kaput!