I recently came upon this great piece at the lovely site Girls of A Certain Age. (I just turned 35, but I’ve been a Girl of A Certain Age since I was 23.)
The short article begins: “This may be completely off the mark, but as someone who is recently divorced and living alone at 43, I would love to see a ‘Best things about living alone’ sort of thing, writes a reader named Jenn.”
This is right after my own heart, being been a solo-dweller since 2009.
The piece is really short, but that’s because it’s mostly a call for reader submissions. And what lovely submissions they are, full of heart, humour and hope. And since I live alone (and LOVE it) I might be a wee bit biased but I thought the takeaway there was that everyone needs their own space. Even the blissfully-partnered and parented (or maybe especially them). But my fave reader comment was this one:
37, single, no children (one dog). I’ve lived alone since I graduated college.
When you live alone no one ever uses the last of the toilet paper without replacing the roll or eats the leftovers you were going to have for lunch tomorrow. No one leaves dirty socks where they shouldn’t. You can binge watch as many period dramas as you like and never watch a sporting event if you don’t want to (or vice versa). No one raises an eyebrow if you want to have a dance party in the kitchen while making dinner. The dog likes your lap the best because you’re his person. You don’t need to put aside money for college tuition or travelling soccer leagues or summer camp. You can sleep late (or go back to sleep after letting the dog out) and nap on the weekends.
When you live alone there’s no one to borrow a tampon from and you’re the idiot who forgot to buy toilet paper. There’s no one to tell you there’s a run in your tights before you leave the house. You’ve never seen a superhero movie and have no idea what people are talking about. No one insists on having a dance party when they can tell you’re in a bad mood. You have to take the dog out when you have the flu and feel like death. You put aside money for a really nice nursing home someday, because you don’t have kids to take you in. No one gives you a time check if you’ve been having too long of a lie in and are about to miss brunch.
Yes, and yes.
So as someone who has bouts of depression, living alone is a blessing and a danger. It’s kind of a huge relief that nobody has to witness my fall-outs – from experience, people get really freaked out when adult women crawl under the bed to cry, strange! – but also, I suspect some of my episodes may have lasted a lot longer than if I had to scrape myself off the tiles just ‘cos there’s another human being around. And my weepy mopey self is harshing the party buzz.
On that note, I’ve realised that isolation and depression go together like mustard and hotdog (but vegan, please). Sometimes it just feels, um, great to be sad alone. But past the sad-whoopee phase is a very well-oiled slide into that sad-scary place, where (for me) I get sadder and sadder and less able to perform normal functions and at the same time, more and more terrified that I won’t be able to claw my way out.
Lucky for me, I do everytime, in no small part due to the four furry beasties I live with who do not give a coin-sized dung about my mental state in comparison to the fullness of the kibble bowl and freshness of kitty litter. And also in part because I feel I’m in a safe space, a secure little cocoon, where I can slowly pull myself together at my own pace.
My alone state may soon come to an end, though, if the dude I’m dating decides to move in with me. In the bittersweet event of that happening, I’d like to catalogue the things I’ll miss most about Solo Living:
- Not shutting toilet doors. I swear those hinges have not been put into action more than 5 times a year, when I get the odd visitor.
- Letting it All Hang Out – beer belly, period belly, mad farting, sonic-boom-burping. In other words, all the grunting and groaning of poorly-maintained machinery.
- Eating all kinds of crap without judgement. I once went grocery shopping with a colleague and the next day he leaned over confidingly and said, “You know, last night when I looked in your basket and saw what you were buying, I felt really sad and disgusted.” At that, I felt a swelling of pride in my breast. (For the record, it was beer, frozen dumplings, cheese biscuits and mouthwash.)
- Not having to lie to anyone that you’re in bed at 3pm because you’re “having a headache” but because you’re too lazy to even remain upright.
- Singing along to Youtube videos and getting all the words wrong.
- Silence. Really – the joys of not having to coordinate lips, tongue, larynx and jaw cannot be overrated. Having long, angry conversations that take place entirely in one’s head cannot be overrated.
- Forgetting things without consequences to other people. The most common example is the forgetting of toilet-paper acquisition duties. Pfft. That’s nothing. You can also forget food, forget to pay electricity bills, forget to do the laundry, forget to connect the gas to the stove and therefore have to cook all meals in a microwave… But the joy of it is that nobody has to suffer your screwups except you.
- Irrational placement of items. I keep the toothpaste next to my pasta sauce. And the spare batteries in my sock drawer. And the granola bars next to my vintage glassware collection. Why? Because I can.
- Being able to sprawl diagonally, cross-wise, upside-down, or any which way across the bed. And being able to make unilateral pillow and soft toy display decisions.
- 100% of kitty attention. Enough said.
Depression Rules 