the perks of being alone
i am finally finding single life to my liking
Last night I ordered in a deep dish pizza. I don’t normally have a craving for deep dish, but I did last night so I opened up doordash and had one sent to me, because I could. There was no one else to consider. There was no one there to say no.
I’m finding new things to love about being single every day. Ordering in whatever kind of food I want is one thing; he was a notoriously picky eater and we basically ate the same five meals over and over again. I also cook whatever I want, making the meals he didn’t want to try, meals that I was always eager to make but couldn’t because he didn’t like them.
I eat when I want. If it’s at 4pm on a Saturday or 7pm on a Wednesday when I’m hungry, that’s when I eat. Sometimes I eat by myself at the table and read while I have dinner or just scroll on my phone. Sometimes I eat on the couch while watching baseball. It’s my choice. I do what I want, when I want.
He was a neat freak to the point of it being annoying. I am a more casual housekeeper and I no longer spend my Saturday mornings sweeping, mopping, dusting. I do all those things, I just do them when the mood strikes me, at a slower pace. Because I can. He hated sports and I would always watch a game on my iPad or computer so as not to control the television. Now, I watch sports to my heart’s content. I blast my music that he never liked. I sleep spread out in the bed. I get up at 4am without waking anyone else up. I put the air conditioner on 65 instead of 70.
These are all the perks of being single, things I’m really starting to enjoy. In the beginning, they made me sad. Cooking for one, eating alone, sleeping alone, it all felt so overwhelming at first. Now that I’ve settled into single life, I find myself enjoying these moments of solitude and singular activity refreshing, life affirming even. I didn’t know I could enjoy being by myself. I didn’t think I could like my own company. The independence I gained is far better than the companionship I lost. I would have never thought that was possible, not when I spent the first year apart brooding and lonely. And that’s not to say I don’t feel lonely at times now, because I do. But that’s tempered by the empowerment I feel in being in charge of my own time.
Looking back, I can see he never valued my time as much as he did his own. And that’s what this is all about, reclaiming my time. I spent so much of my life the past fourteen years catering to his needs, his whims, his schedule, without a thought as to my own needs. I’m free of that now, I’m not beholden to anyone else’s calendar. The power I feel when I do things according to my own whims is refreshing, and something I need. It might be a selfish way of living, but I deserve to be selfish after so many years of collapsing my needs for someone else.
The deep dish pizza is the least of it; that’s more a symbolic gesture than anything else. It’s the overall sense of taking care of myself first that I’m finding to be the best thing about being single.
I’ve been flirting with the idea of getting on a dating app lately, but each time I come close I stop myself. I’m just now learning to live with myself, to enjoy my own company, to satisfy my own needs before anyone else’s. Inviting someone else into my life now would mean taking someone else’s schedule into consideration. It would mean modifying the life I’ve settled into the past few months, and it might mean stifling the growth I’ve been experiencing. So I’ll put dating on the back burner for now, and enjoy this time being single and single and free. I’m going to enjoy just being me.