One Singular Sensation

Long time, no blog. Goodness gracious. I'm not sure if it's been laziness or lack of something to say. I always have something to say so it's gotta be the laziness. Didn't I say back in December that it was more that I didn't really want to share or talk about what was going on in my life? Well, that's probably still it, too, that and the laziness.

So I'm just firing off a quick post to say that I really enjoy being single. It's been eleven plus years since I could say I was single, and this time around it is sooooooo entirely different, in a good way. Well, in a good way and in a bad way.

Eleven years ago, I was twenty-seven-and-a-half, and felt like so many possibilities stretched out before me. I didn't know what I wanted to be when I grew up (I had a job, but it was most definitely not a career!), and I didn't know who I would marry, or if I'd ever marry, or what my kids would be like or if I'd ever have kids. I also weighed about one hundred pounds less than I do now, which is to say, I had more energy and felt better in general.

So now, eleven years and almost one hundred pounds heavier, I've found a career, and I have a completed marriage under my belt... glad that I do, it's for the best, but like most of us who get married, I kind of thought it was going to be an "until death do us part" sort of thing. That may be what bums me out the most - that I didn't achieve what I set out to achieve in spite of my best efforts.

Also, all these years later, I have this wonderful, fabulous, fantastic, awesome, amazing, funny, entertaining, brilliant, gorgeous daughter named Kayla. Had I not married who I married, I would not have won this fabulous prize. For this reason I'll never regret all those years that sometimes feel sadly misspent. It all happened as it should.

I never thought I'd have a situation in which I'd have to share my daughter. I am sad for her that she won't grow up with both parents in one house. But luckily, strange jobs and strange hours sort of accustomed her to the idea of having one parent at a time, and at the age of three, she can't really get the bigger picture, which is good. Actually, she may get it more than I think she does, but she doesn't seem to be any worse off for it. She has a mother who is happier than she was before, and I think this is probably the most important thing.

I do not like that I have to put the garbage cans out on Tuesday night and bring them in on Wednesday. But I do like killing my own spiders and changing light bulbs I have to get on a chair to change. I don't like being the only grown-up in the house at night, but I love spending that special time with Kayla, just the two of us, either reading a book in bed or watching a show or "playing dollhouse" or doing a puzzle. It has always been special to hang out with her, but now that it is really just the two of us, there is something extra special that is hard to explain unless you've been there.

The emptiness that being single brings is not the same when you have someone like Kayla around. With her, there is not much room for emptiness (or anything or anyone else for that matter!). Between Kayla, my job, and my wonderful friends and family, it is next to impossible to have that same sort of loneliness I felt eleven years ago. Somewhere down the line, possibly, I may want to find what I have been telling my friends would be a "once a month on Wednesday... friend." You know, for going to the movies or just chatting or whatever. Come on, people, I'm only human and though I've only been living as a single person for three weeks, emotionally it's been a very long time!

So now, at the ripe old age of almost thirty-nine, being single still means life is about the possibilities that exist, they're just different. And I'm quite okay with that.