Living Alone is a Skill

I was knocking around the Internet the other day and I found this quote from Elizabeth May’s Tumblr:

“Living alone is a skill, like running long distance or programming old computers. You have to know parameters, protocols. You have to learn them so well they become like a language: to have music always so that the silence doesn’t overwhelm you, to perform your work exquisitely well so that your time is filled. You have to allow yourself to open up until you are the exact size of the place you live, no more, or else you get restless. No less, or else you drown. There are rules; there are ways of being and not being.”

It’s from Palimpsest by Catherynne Valente. And every word of it is true. Painfully, gloriously true.

I live alone.  I love where I live and how I live. But it isn’t always easy, and there are times when I do have to work at it. There are times when I feel myself opening up larger than the place I inhabit; it’s a small apartment, and this isn’t hard. I feel myself getting restless, impatient for the next thing, whatever that is.

I fill my life with projects. Acting projects, writing projects. I never have a second that isn’t full of purpose, unless I want one. I’m never at a loss for things to do. This is a coping mechanism, sure. But it feels right. I wouldn’t replace it with a home centered around kids, a husband, family. That doesn’t change the fact that I love my family more than anything, or that I want a husband someday. But right now, my life is all about me: my own ambitions, my own dreams. I love it like that. I’m not the self-sacrificing type.

There are times when I wake up and it’s too quiet and I have to have NPR on. But there are other times when I’m coming back from a busy night out, and stepping through the door into my empty apartment is like slipping into a warm bath. It’s liberating and comforting at the same time. This place is my shelter, small as it’s becoming, and it’s mine.