The traditional path is a worm out one. Perhaps that is just my excuse (justification) for doing life, well, backwards.
As I sit this morning in one of my favorite Latin breakfast locales, waiting for my recently adopted rescue husky to finish her “spaw” day, I am slowly sipping on my mega chai latte and eavesdropping on the conversation happening two tables across from me.
This gang of five, older, most likely retired, is laughing, smiling, and generally enjoying each other’s company. The pack leader is a short, curly haired firecracker whose husband lights up every time she cracks a joke or recounts some event through. He reaches over to touch her shoulder as he leans his head back in laughter. Their companions are equally amused.
This couple appears to have been together for a long time as evidenced by their familiarity and shared past experiences, now stories, they tell their friends.
I’ve tried that traditional path, twice. Sadly, or perhaps thankfully, those journeys were both dead ends without U-turns. I even went off road and attempted a less traditional yet more modern arrangement, which only left me feeling like I was always going to be the only adult in the room and working well into my nineties to care for yet another financial slacker. It was only when I chose to be in a dysfunctional , going-nowhere, anytime-meantime relationship, did I start to realize that I was my own worst problem.
Eager to leave my parents’ home, at eighteen and belonging to a time and place that said if I wasn’t married and pregnant by Twenty-two, I was old, washed up, and doomed for spinster status, I married the exact wrong guy at nineteen.
Desperate to get it right a second time, I married yet again, what I call the used car salesman of technology, only to find pictures of him and his supposed ex-wife together on a west coast beach, date stamped, right smack in the middle of our dating timeline. I packed up faster than a veteran military mama who just got hubby’s next deployment assignment – out of there.
This ridiculous cycle of rinse-and-repeat finally ended when my body shut down after years of fight or flight, and I agreed to give in to being single. Clearly, my partnership compass was hell-broken, and my heart just could not take it anymore.
The things I learned healed, forgave, and empowered me with the strength and confidence I needed to learn to love being alone, because in truth, since the day I left my family’s home, I have never had a singular life; whether married, living together, or raising two children as a single mom, I have never had the opportunity to live by myself. I really needed the growth journey so vital to growing up. So, when my son packed up and headed to Denver, I released my inner frat “boy.” My home began to resemble a (semi-clean) fraternity house. That’s right, drink it in and just be jelly over it. I was a fifty-three-year-old frat slug.
Dust bunnies? So cute.
Sink full of dishes? I just need to clean one coffee mug.
Laundry? Just push that pile over to the corner of the room and throw a blanket over it.
When a friend of mine came over for a visit, I cleaned up, well, a bit. We were watching T.V., and he reached for a coaster.
“Don’t bother. I’ve relaxed the rules a bit.”
“Noticed. I saw the dog hair on the stairs.” He winked.
“You’re welcome. Makes ya feel right at home, don’t it?” I giggled.
In truth, it was freeing to leave beer cans on the counter, pool towels on the patio chairs, and yes, the dishes piled high in the kitchen sink as we ventured outside to sit beneath the stars in the backyard.
“You haven’t been this relaxed in a while, have you?”
I pondered his question. “I haven’t felt this safe in a long time. It’s hard to relax when you’re chronically anxious.”
“Security. It suits you. I’m glad of it,” he said.
I disclosed that sense of security was tied to knowing myself and for once, truly understanding just what I can do on my own. It’s incredibly liberating and empowering at the same time. But at last I had to adult up and set things back in order, so I recently returned to organized living after an eighteen-month hiatus. I must admit, it was fun not adulting for a while.
There’s no right way to do life. Some of us must make constant U-turns, take country roads, detours, or even stop to ask for directions.
I realize I did it all wrong because I tried doing it someone else’s way, and I ended up at an undesirable destination, sad, broken, and alone at a time when I (thought I) should be jammed up to someone else’s jelly.
Instead, I gave myself the opportunity to throw life into reverse to cover old ground, maneuver around (repetitive) treacherous routes, circling back to restart in the right direction. I know that eventually, I will end up in my favorite Latin café, looking over to see someone like me watching me laugh and love with my plus one and our collective friend group as we tell our stories about roads less travelled, and the ones that got us lost before we found ourselves and each other. I’ll whisper to that stranger as I head toward the door, “Keep going girlfriend, you’ll get where you’re going, on your time.”
Life lesson: only travel with people who make journeys fun and agree that dust bunnies are hella cute.
Ciao Ciao for now.
-Mia