What you see when you're not looking.

You know..life is a funny thing.

When I first thought of the marriage being over, I too thought of the things we had bought together and the things I would not want to give up. Now, a week later, I'm willing and ready to give up a lot more up then I originally thought.

Time will make you change your mind and see things through a different light. In my minds eye, all I can think of now is the freedom of 'solitary' existence. Sounds odd doesn't it?
Freedom in solitary existence....but there is a certain amount of freedom in living alone. Since I have lived alone before, I know of this freedom. I miss that freedom.
Oh sure sure, I don't miss going to work and working two and three jobs to keep my head above water..but even then there was a satisfaction with the self during that existence that lent to a harmony of sorts. A peace within. A knowing.

Now..in the current existence I have (had), there is no satisfaction, no freedom.
Just what kind of freedom am I speaking of?  This kind.

The simple kind:
The freedom to know, that if you walk into your home you can toss your stuff down and not worry about it, if you choose to do so.
That on a day off, if you choose, you don't have to do ANYthing. (and there will be no looks of consternation for doing nothing..no looks of disdain, no looks that calls you names)
The freedom to run naked through the house after a shower and not have someone stare at you like you've lost your ever-lovin' mind.
To know you have no one else to consider when it comes to meals..if you want to eat peanut butter and crackers for dinner..great.
If you want to watch an all day fest of "The Godfather" you aren't going to hear the complaints of another voice debunking your choice.
To dance and sing about the house as you clean and or cook something and not be thought of as crazy or a lunatic (ya know..I haven't sang or danced about in a long time)
These are all surface pleasures of freedom.

The more complicated kind: 
Along with those freedoms comes an internal freedom of self.
One that says: I can be just as good (or better) at what I do alone then I can with someone who knocks me down for it. 
I can give myself the praise I need on a job well done and not depend on words of kindness from someone else. I'm just as good at praise as the next person, and better then the one I'm currently living with.
It's a silence in the soul that simply says "it's ok"..a peace within that you are responsible for no one but yourself and 'your' baggage and not the baggage of another.

(believe me, when  you're married, you DO carry the baggage of another..even the ones they have heaped upon you that you never asked for)

Then the really complicated kind:
It's a stillness that you reach in your soul that no one else can put there..
A satisfaction and pleasure within the self that no one can take away unless you let them.
A quietness that can only happen when you are alone. One that speaks to you and comforts you.
Being alone, you find yourself.

I have to say, I gave up a lot of myself over the last 5 years. I gave it up to keep peace. I gave it up to keep from dealing with a rage and reckoning from someone else. I gave up a lot.
What scares me most, is that I may never get me back, or that it will take me years to get me back.
I miss the me I used to be.



The Crone of searching for ME,
Sage