Living La Vida Loner

The Bungalow Great Room

During my Wonder Bread years I shared a bedroom with my baby sister.  Don’t get me wrong, I adored her (she’s the baby, the princess, the golden child, I was contractually obligated to adore her) and I still do, but sharing a room with a kid 10 years younger cramps your style.  How the heck was I supposed to develop the skills necessary to someday become leader of the Closet Vodka Mother Society with an eight year old rooting through my stuff?  We had no mutual subjects to talk about while nodding off to sleep.  We couldn’t talk about boyfriends.  I mean really, how much advice can a sweet innocent 18 year old give to an 8 year old tart?  After leaving the family nest, I had college roommates, apartment roommates, a live-in boyfriend (my social life did ‘improve’), a live in husband (not at the same time as the live-in boyfriend;  that would be wrong and way too much laundry) and then live-in children.  Point being, I never had a place of my own until I decided in my forties to move out of the marital house and into my own apartment. Although sad the marriage didn’t work out, I would finally  have a space I could claim as my own.  I would have privacy.  I would be able to stroll around my fabulously appointed penthouse (with all appointments I appointed) in my jammies until it’s time to go out in public without someone asking if I’m sick or PMS-ing.  I could crank the heat up to a temperature I like.  I could eat what I want, when I want and WHERE I want.    

Yessirree, living solo has its definite advantages. But during my years of solo living, I have found some downsides.   First and foremost – it costs money.  Every bit of space in the fabulously appointed bungalow (I’ve moved on up from the penthouse) is all mine, but so is the monthly rent payment, and the electric bill.  And then there’s the heat.  I have learned that the temperature I like, and the one I can afford are very many degrees apart.  I have also learned that apparently every mess in the big house was not the boys’ fault.  I am a freaking slob.  Coats not hung up?  They would be mine.  Shoes in the middle of the floor, also mine.  Dirty dishes in the sink?  Again, mine.

But that’s not the worst of it.    There’s a fear I never felt before.  Oh, I’ve learned to deal with the gripping panic that every ax murderer and rapist on the loose is headed for my door.  I just stopped watching the news, and only read the Lifestyle section, horoscope and the comics in the newspaper.  Other than the occasional panic that Mark Trail’s wife’s hairdresser is lurking on my deck waiting to vacu-form my coiffure into a water-retardant helmet, what I worry about now is, ironically, what I used to laugh about.  What if I fall and I can’t get up?  Or what if, while savoring whatever I want to eat, wherever I want to eat it, it gets lodged in my throat?  It happened to Mama Cass.  When I lived at the big house, I was comforted by the knowledge that the kids would eventually get hungy and trip over me on their way to the fridge. But how long before someone misses me when I’m the only one here?  It can be a little lonely living alone. 

Well, here’s how I solved that dilemma.  I surround myself with friends, lots of them.  And with those friends, I make social plans – oodles of them.  Movies, happy hours, dinners, happy hours, shopping excursions, happy…well you get it. 

I have also discovered the wonders of volunteering, because I am a giver, I love the warm feeling I get from helping, and maybe because I am not cheap to maintain.  You see, except for those occasions when I have a date to pick up the check, those movies, happy hours, dinners, happy hours, shopping excursions and happy hours can be  pricey.   I discovered that most functions needing volunteers involve food, so free dinner for me, and good grocery shopping if I remember to bring the Ziplocks and act quickly.  

My thought is that by making lots of plans and commitments, not many nights will go by without someone missing me, in the unlikely event I fall and can’t get up after choking on a ham sandwich while reading a cookbook on the toilet.

So in summary, the trick to being able to enjoy living alone, is to never, ever be alone.