Thoughts on " How to Be Alone"

I have watched this movie 4 times since yesterday afternoon. I want to write out what it brings to mind.

I love this movie so much that if I could package it up and send it to everyone in the world as well-intentioned junk mail I totally would.

There are well-intentioned remarks, "If you stop looking you'll find someone". "You're probably just not really looking for a relationship, because if you were, you'd find one." Designed for the chronically single. I even tell them to myself, when I come home at night and wish that there were more then just my shoes in the closet.

But those statements don't really express what I feel about "lonely". This movie comes closer to describing what I have been trying to do in a "personal growth" (gag me) way for the past, I don't even know how many years, then anything ever has.

Maybe this story started when my mom died, maybe it started when I was 16 and had my first 'real' relationship.

Being Alone on a Bus (but not really)

I am sitting on a bus on my way to the Yukon Territories. The bus is making the wide loop above the great lakes, we are somewhere in Ontario, or perhaps we have just entered Manitoba, I can't tell. All I can see is Boreal forest leaning in on the narrow highway. I am taking the cheapest, longest bus ride imaginable, to get away from two relationships I have totally fucked up.

I have been on this bus for about a day and a half. There are 2 more days left to my trip. My best friend is going to pick me up Liard and we are going to go sit in something called "Hot Springs". Little do I know that when I get there I will see my first moose up close. Seeing that craggy antlered head in the midst of BC forest will be the first thing that gets me to think about anything besides the steaming wreckage of my personal life.

However, I am still 2 days away from the moose so I am still thinking about the women I am in love with, and how much they both probably hate me.

This is not alone. But I am very lonely.

Maybe it doesn't matter, this is what matters. For years, I let relationships define me. To a certain extent we all do this, but there are certain types of people, (I am one of them), who, for a variety of reasons, (life circumstance, genetics, personality), place much more emphasis on their value to others then their own self-evaluation.

At the same time as having a general belief that I was only important inasmuch as I was in a relationship and valuable to someone else. I was, consistently, irritatingly, aware of my own alone-ness.

That used to be a huge burden. When I was younger, and shyer, and much more self-hating I used to stare at the phone, and will someone to call me, I never thought I could call them, that would be a sign of weakness and it was doubtful that they would want to hear from me, so I had to wait for them to call. In the interim, waiting was torture. I couldn't do anything, I didn't enjoy myself, I wouldn't focus on something else, I would buzz around like a moth settling and alighting.

This wasn't even someone I crushed on, this was anyone. I was waiting for *anyone* to rescue me from spending time with myself.

Then I fell in love a few times, and the love was reciprocated. This was amazing to a lonely-hating person like myself. I had someone in my life who loved me enough to want to spend as much time as humanly possible with me. This was both shocking and wonderful.

Unfortunately these experiences were relatively short-lived in every instance. I could go on about maybe that was also my fault, that maybe my need for validation was so strong it eventually overtook whatever 'relationship' there was. Friendships that had started beautifully, would turn into the "Miriam Show".

I know that is really harsh on me, and not the whole story. But still, loneliness avoidance did contribute to the demise of some really lovely relationships.

I have had to learn to be alone over the years, much more often then I have had to learn to be in a relationship. And of course that seemed like some sort of curse. Like through no fault of my own, I was being punished for my basic existence by being denied something I wanted *so* badly, something I was watching other people find, with what appeared to me, relative ease.

Holyrood

Holyrood is this peak you can climb that is kind of right in the middle of the city of Edinburgh.

I climbed it one day when I was visiting a friend in Scotland. She was at work, and I was spending the day alone. I was in a foul state of mind and had been for weeks. Up to that point I had almost ruined my vacation obsessing about this man I loved, who was not replying to my emails.

I saw the peak from another scenic view across town, that I had climbed out of a sense of touristic obligation. While looking across the city I noticed this hump-shaped mountain in the distance that had tiny windbreaker wearing ants struggling up its face.

I wanted to be one of those ants; tiny, anonymous, struggling. That's how I felt anyways, why the fuck not climb a mountain. It took about one hour to get to the base, walking, it took an additional two hours to climb to the peak. On the way I took lots of pictures, because it was the most beautiful place I had ever been. When my camera ran out of batteries about 6 metres from the top, I felt betrayed.

At the top of the mountain I was so proud of myself. I felt a sense of potential and accomplishment I hadn't felt in quite some time. I also wished I had someone to hold me, to celebrate with, to say:

"Holyshitisn'tthisbeautifulIcan'tbelieveweclimbedalltheway
youlooksonicewithyourcheeksallflushed etc... etc"

When you take pictures of a thing, to show to someone who is breaking your heart, as a way of saying, look at what I am doing, despite you. You are not alone.

I believe that you get forced to learn, what you need to learn in order to thrive. Given a choice, I wouldn't have tried to become less co-dependent, or develop a stronger ego, or learn to love the person I am flying solo.

Had there been an option in the last 10 years: If my lovers weren't better then me about knowing when to pull the plug. If I hadn't pulled all sorts of random shit that signaled my lack of 'readiness' for a long-term commitment. I would have stayed in some relationship (however lame-ass or retarded), so long as it made me feel good about myself. I would have avoided the impossible task of feeling good on my own.

Or at least that's what I tell myself. Because that was the first lesson. What I want, what I would use, to feel better, is absolutely not what I need. Okay I'll be honest that is a lesson I have to remind myself every day pretty much. It's the hardest thing in the world, I think co-dependents are more like the alcoholics that birth them then they realize. Being 'involved' with someone is like opening a bottle for me. I do it, and then lie about it. I pretend I am not getting involved, or thinking about someone new, or imagining a new date.

But I usually am, doing one or more of the above.

I have come to accept that what I have needed to learn most for most of my life is how to be alone. How to stop hanging on the telephone, to stop investing so much in how others perceive me, and what kind of role I play in the lives of people I care about.

But fuck is it hard.

And the hardest thing is not to go to extremes, not to just shut her down and say; "I can't do love like other people so I should just be alone." Because that would be much worse.

So I keep experimenting, trying to figure out what kind of care I can do, what sorts of boundaries I can trace around friendship, sensuality, commitment and responsibility. I am getting better at it, and I am enjoying some really lovely friendships, lovers, and people who are somewhere in this in-between place. I've even managed a relationship, a real relationship, that was amazing and instead of ending because we were being awful to each other. It ended because it had too, because our lives were headed in different directions.

So, I am getting better at this. Both being alone, and being with someone.

I know that I need to take care of myself first and foremost for now. I have accepted that I am actually most comfortable in my house alone. Which is a weird thing to realize. I went to my cousin's house the other day, she has 3 kids and a husband, I am typically extremely jealous of her committed and loving family life.

I am still full of admiration for her and her family, but the last time I was there, I realized just how badly I need my quiet empty apartment to be all mine at the end of the day.

Because I am still figuring this out, and I am afraid that by having someone in my life, to that extent, I would revert back to spending all my time trying to figure us out, how to keep the relationship ticking along, how to get them to like me more, how to make myself indispensable to them.

I might start dismissing the me that notices the moose in the forest, or climbs mount Holyrood all by herself, or figures out what I want from life, what I am capable of achieving.

I love that voice, I need to love it even more, in this quiet lovely apartment, or on my balcony, walking in the park, listening to my breath.