On Being Single

Single is sometimes very, very quiet.

The kind of quiet where the stark vastness of a morning is shattered by a single pair of fleshy feet padding across the hardwood. The day is not punctuated by sound until I make it. That is my task and my task alone every morning. Making the sound that starts the day.

The evening can be much louder, but it's still a responsibility all my own. Stereo cranked and broom in hand, I dance across the expanse of my living room with my slender but dedicated dance partner. We glide, we tap, we groove.

Sometimes we pause before one of the windows, wondering- no, hoping that someone else is witnessing the delight of my evening alone. Me and my broom. Dancing.

Single means no one else will trudge to the store for you when you're sick. Ditto on rainy days, snow storms and other occasions when it's good to have a permanent plus one.

Breakfast, lunch and dinner - three meals that sometimes happen, sometimes don't. When they do, their menus are mine to decide, down to the refined details of drinking orange juice right from the jug.

Sue me. I live alone.

Single means everything is mine, mine, mine. The shoes, the mess, the bills, the beer, the remote control. Every. Single. Thing. in my house is all mine. There are blessings to this, and there are curses.

I, alone, get to decide which dinner guests are invited to my table. I, alone, get to decide what we'll serve. I, alone, get to clean up the mess.

My nights are made up of a very big bed with very cold sheets. Body heat doesn't work as well to warm the soul when it's one pair of legs and arms and one single heart beating through the stillness.

Unexpected, happy late night telephone conversations are a good substitute.

The shower is mine to comandeer whenever it suits me, followed by long, leisurely hours in front of the bathroom's mirror, complete with hair brushes and flat irons and makeup in hand. Nobody's in line behind me. Nobody's tapping his toes. Nobody's rolling their eyes as I try my thirteenth hair style.

Nobody.

Single is having an empty refrigerator and a trash can overflowing with sticky takeout containers. Other times I spend a string of nights of dining out with friends who help fill the silence of my life. Sometimes those nights creep into dawn.

And it is delightful.

Inspired by the latest Modern Love piece in the New York Times. I've never had bed bugs, but I know all too well what it's like to cope with and survive a situation that would be made more bearable by a partner.


Kate's Random Musings by Kate the Great is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.