I know how to be alone damnit!

I've been single for a year and a half now.

I ended the relationship and I was relieved when it was over. I was sad and I missed the companionship, but the same issues kept coming up repeatedly and I knew they weren't going to go away - we had some basic differences in what we wanted from a relationship and those weren't going to change.

Prior to that relationship, I had been single for two years.

I'm 42 years old and I know myself pretty well. I know my strengths and I am pretty clear about my weaknesses as well. I have a ton of interests and when I took three months off from work last summer before beginning grad school, I had no problem filling up my time. In fact, when school began at the end of August I was no where near accomplishing the things that I had wanted to accomplish. I had enough things to keep me busy for another year, easily.

So, when I hit points in being single when I yearn to have companionship - someone to share my day to day thoughts with or to gripe to about work to, or to plan a vacation with the number one thing that irks me to no end is having some well intentioned acquaintance tell me "You just need to learn how to be alone"!

"Learn how to be alone" I feel like screaming! Let me tell you something, I was the primary parent for my daughter from the time she was three. I put myself through my undergrad degree with no assistance from anyone, dedicated myself to a 14 year career in a field that burns most people out in two years and worked my way up into mid-level management. I then decided to leave and go to grad school while also putting my daughter through her undergrad work. I run, bike, play soccer, hike and backpack and I've recently started learning how to snowboard and I've begun exploring photography!

Now that my daughter is older I've dedicated myself to spending quality time with my nieces and nephews and I've impressed them with my ability to use live bait for fishing and to show them the wonders of Fort Ticonderoga and magnetic hematite from a chachki store in Lake George.

Picture courtesy of: http://MissBlackPanther.deviantart.com/art/Lonely-46321086

All of this I've accomplished alone, or primarily so. My fear is not that I do not know how to spend time alone. My fear is that I will spend so much time as a single person that I will not want to be bothered with consulting someone else about what to fix for dinner or what to do on the weekend.

I enjoy relationships and companionship, so perhaps the above fear is unfounded. As the time passes, however, and the prospects I meet are unsuited or unready I occasionally face the fact that I may, indeed, spend a lot more time alone.

So, what is one to do with that future? Yes, friends are wonderful and I'm happy to say that I have a number of them who are loving and understanding and giving with their time. However, they have their own lives to live. They aren't available when I just want someone to cuddle with while we watch a movie. They aren't there to hold me as I fall asleep at night or to bring me a cup of coffee in the morning. Those are the things I miss most about a relationship - the things that a regular friendship just doesn't provide.

I wish there was an easy, pithy way to sum that up in a retort the next time some well-meaning, but ill-informed stranger offers up a bit of unsolicited advice. Usually I just smile and nod and think about letting go of the desire to strangle them.