Stuck Between Stations
on birthdays and loneliness and moving forward
I didn’t expect to be staring down my 59th birthday as a single person. I thought I would face this inauspicious birthday on the 25th - last of my my 50s! - with someone I loved, with the knowledge that I had years of companionship waiting for me to ride out my old age with. Alas, that is not the case anymore and I’m staring 60 down with a bit of fear and trepidation. Growing old is a scary notion as it is; the thought of growing old alone is terrifying.
I’ve always been somewhat codependent so it’s not surprising that the prospect of spending the rest of my life alone is daunting. Yet, here’s the thing: I do not ever want to date or fall in love again. The idea of turning myself over to someone again, of allowing myself to be vulnerable, of opening my heart, it all shakes me to my core. I will not allow myself to be put in a position to be hurt again.
So where does that leave me? I don’t want to spend these years alone and I don’t want to again devote my life to someone else. I have to learn to be happy on my own and at 59, that’s a big ask.
Birthdays have always been a path to introspection for me. I’ll spend the days before my birthday contemplating my life, thinking about death, taking stock of what I’ve done and what I haven’t done. I celebrate being alive another year as much as I mourn the year I’m leaving behind. I try to spend the day mindfully, in the spirit of the moment, giving thanks for everything I have in my life.
The best birthday I ever had was in 2009. We spent the day walking around Truckee, California, and taking a boat tour around Lake Tahoe. At night we had dinner on the lake at a fancy restaurant and watched the sun set on the water as we ate. We toasted to happiness, to bliss, to birthdays. There was a feeling of complete happiness that took over, a feeling I had not known until then. I didn’t hold subsequent birthdays up to that impossible standard, but I do think about it every year. I think about celebrating another year on this planet in such a joyous state and being so grateful for that, for the love, the attention, the care.
I have a void to fill this year in regards to all that. I know what I’ll be thinking about. I know I will miss the birthday celebrations of the recent past, the going out to dinner, the flowers, the doting attention. The love. I will miss feeling loved by the person I chose to spend my time with. I have family, and they will shower me with kindness because we make a fuss of birthdays in my family. But I will ultimately feel that loneliness kicking inside me, begging to be let out, to allow me to cry and scream at the perceived unfairness of it all. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. I wasn’t supposed to be facing the last year of my 50s alone.
I’ll look at pictures from that Lake Tahoe birthday and mourn what used to be because I can’t help but be morose, it’s just in my nature. But I have to move forward. I have to give myself the gift of love; the idea that loving myself is enough, that I don’t need another person to validate me, to make me feel important, to hold my hand. I have to be all that to myself now because the alternative - going out there and finding love again - is not something I want. I’m stuck between two stations and while neither is appealing right now, I need to get off the tracks and choose a destination.
Choosing to be alone may seem self defeating for a person like me who treasures companionship and needs the validation of being loved. But even at my advanced age, it’s not too late to learn to be good to myself, to validate my own existence instead of letting someone else do it for me. My birthday is a good day to reflect upon that, to figure out a way to quell the loneliness with a lot of self care.
I know sometimes it’s frowned upon to make a big deal of your own birthday as an adult, but I’ve always made a big deal out of it and I’m not going to stop now just because I’m alone. In fact, being alone is an even bigger and better reason to celebrate my life. I don’t need Lake Tahoe. I don’t need a partner. I just need me.