The Radical Notion of Being OK

Here’s the thing about living alone for most of your life (Or in my case, living without another human. Sadie would dispute that I live alone).

One day, you’re going to be coming back from a dog park/shopping trip. It’s going to be a rainy spring night in Boston. You’re going to be expertly juggling your bag, keys, groceries and leashed dog, and still have a hand available to shut the trunk and lock the car. You’re going to be reflecting that you wish the cute guy with the friendly mixed pooch had been on his way IN to the park instead of out. You’re going to be pondering that it’s weird that you are looking forward to spending a night in your kitchen, cooking caramelized brussels sprouts and making salsa. You are laughing in your head imagining your friends saying “Who are you and what have you done with take-out queen Jodi?”  You’re going to find your way through the double-locked front doors, balancing keys and everything else, and watch your dog bound up the stairs, sniffing at each door and looking back at you as if to say “This one? Is this ours?”

You’re going to remember being one of a few souls who noticed that it was sunny AND raining at the T-stop earlier, and looked up from your phone to search for a rainbow. And you will definitely remember finding not one but two, and being pretty damn proud of yourself for noticing.

You’re going to consider that next week, you will be reunited with your college roommates, who are all married with kids or planning a wedding, and you are pretty sure they won’t have changed enough to make you feel weird for being single. You’re going to realize that all you have planned this weekend is a trip to an Irish pub with friends, and otherwise, you’re on your own, to do whatever. Whatever will probably include long walks in the spring sun with your dog, laundry and the never-ending cycle of cleaning your apartment, and perhaps a trip to IKEA, but here’s the thing.

It’s up to you. You get to decide. You will do it all on your own.

And while your knee-jerk, defensive reaction is qualify every such statement about such things with “of course it would be nice to have someone to help me carry the groceries or chat with when I get home” you realize, in a sweet, sparkly moment of clarity, that you are 100% OK with all of it. In fact, you have a s#!&-eating grin on your face because you are really looking forward to the weekend…and the one after that.

If you are single, and living alone in a day and age when that’s not “the norm”, I hope you get to experience such a moment. I really, really hope you do. It feels wonderful. It feels strong. It feels powerful. It may be fleeting, or it may not be, but either way, it’s a revelation.

It’s that moment when you realize that YOU are enough.

Oh, right, sorry, Sadie. When you and your loyal pooch are enough. 🙂