The Hard Part About Being Alone

I grew up an identical twin. Which means I pretty much have never been alone. Even my DNA was once a part of my sister's, and we shared the womb together. I was born two minutes after her and I had a sibling of identical age my entire life. I had a friend and an enemy.

Fast forward 35 years and I am a self-admitted co-dependent. I don't think of this term as a "bad" thing. Being codependent means you just really don't enjoy down time. Alone time. Yourself. Do I hate myself?

A good friend sent me a book for my birthday. It's called "The Language of Letting Go: Daily Meditations on Codependency." I wanted to throw the book against the wall when I opened it. Like, "How dare you call me codependent!" but it was spurred by a conversation we'd had on my trip to Denver. We talked about self actualization, the long road to recovery from traumatic childhoods and the Mother Wound. Fascinating website for young women who have problematic relationships with their moms.

But, the trouble is, I can't read the book without hating myself. I opened it recently to a page.

October 3

Getting Through the Discomfort

Surrender to the pain. Then learn to surrender to the good. It's there and more is on the way. -- Beyond Codependency

Being alone is so brashly uncomfortable for me that I learned after my husband moved out to heal it with never being alone. Being a mildly attractive and relatively fit lady, and with the abundance of dating applications to choose a mate on, I had no trouble finding something to do on any given night without my kids. I even began splurging on a babysitter to enjoy a glass of wine or a free meal with a handsome person.

I realized, I'd never have to spend a minute alone ever again. It was great.

I dated many types of people. Some dates went better than others. Sometimes we'd never even meet in person because while chatting and messaging back and forth I'd realize they weren't for me. Sometimes people would realize I was a divorcee and a mother and it no longer mattered that I was mildly attractive. They didn't want anything to do with me. Some men would berate me. They'd say "I feel bad for your children." because I was working to grow a company and not staying home with them? Ever heard of a working mother? Or a single mom?

I never really grew tired of meeting new people because I figured, the next one could be it. He could fill the void permanently, and then the fact that I slept alone in my bed and still had no one to change the oil in my car would be solved. Someone would kill all the spiders for me and teach my boys to play baseball and ride a bike and I could just replace their dad. Voila!

But, it didn't work out that way. Failure after failure after failure. Each attempt more dismal than the last to recruit a valuable candidate for the job of making me happy. Each time, I was disappointed but did not hesitate to get back out and try again.

Until I met Jay.

For the first time in a long time someone really showed up. On my birthday, after we'd only been dating for one week, he brought me a plant. It was the second plant he'd brought me, actually. He'd cut out a paper heart and on it wrote "Happy Birthday Mommy! from Anwar and Yassine" I was excited and confused. He said "This gift is from your kids. Because they are too little to buy you something and I know your ex-husband didn't buy you anything on their behalf."

It was something a husband would do. It was something a great father would do. He barely knew me and he was showering me with love.

We had an amazing lunch date and I knew I didn't want to date anyone else. I even cancelled a date that afternoon to go out with him.

We rarely were apart in the last two months until his wife's sister came to town. Followed by a visit from his mother. He couldn't spend much time with me since he was entertaining family, and surely I wasn't going to meet his wife's sister. So, I tried to keep myself busy. The boredom sank in. The loneliness. I wanted to find someone to talk to. I'd kept in contact with a few of the people I'd dated but not pursued. We'd become friends and from time to time we'd talk to each other. We'd say hello, ask about life, etc. I thought it perfectly normal to reach out to them this week and last as I was sitting in my bed at night. The kids were asleep and I couldn't handle the not knowing. What was Jay doing? What was his sister-in-law asking him about? Was he telling her about me? Was he thinking about his dead wife all the time, tearing through boxes of Kleenex and dwelling in his loss? I felt a million miles away from him at that time. I felt like I wasn't a part of his life. Just hanging in the periphery.

I texted back and forth with a few of my "friends" just to say hello. I even told them that I was dating someone special and that I was happy. They were glad for me. It was nice to know I still had their friendship. After all, they are part of this ugly, terrible story of the last year of my life. We shared some laughs and some fun times. I went camping, I got stoned for the first time in forever, I made music, I painted, I rock climbed, I ate so much dessert I felt sick, I went to a Cubs game.

I can't take any of that back. Though I tried to find a partner and nothing stuck... I learned a lot of lessons. I cried a lot of tears over a lot of people who are no longer around. I don't wish I'd done it differently. Each bump in the road taught me something.

When I got three days without my kids this week I'd hoped to spend every free minute with Jay. I went straight to his house and cooked a huge meal. I left my phone out while I jumped in the shower. And I received a text message from a man who I'd dated nearly ten months earlier. A guy I really hated, deep down, who was rotten to me and I didn't want to talk to ever again. It reads,

"I'm bored. What are you up to?"

When Jay saw the text he started to get upset. He asked me who this guy was and why was he texting me. I brushed it off because I have no feelings for this man. I didn't want this to blow up so I told him straight that I don't know why this person messaged me, and I don't have any ties to him. I hadn't seen him for a long time, over 10 months. And he had initiated contact with me a week ago and I had told him I was in a relationship. Jay warned me that the Cuban in him would not be okay with men texting me. I urged him to hold off on the conversation in it's entirety until later tonight when his son goes to bed. I told him I'll divulge anything he wants to know.

We ate dinner, and a lot of sad things happened in between. His son began crying when he was reminded of his mother's Shepherd's Pie and how mine was the same. He hugged him but the only way to console a sleep deprived 5 year old boy sometimes is to turn on the TV and let him decompress. We washed dishes and cleaned up dinner.

Another message came through.

"Did I do something wrong or are you just making sure we are keeping some distance because it was hard to make things work and you're in a relationship or on your way to being in one?"

All the ghosts of Christmas past are deciding to haunt me tonight? Jason informed me that I'd received a note from someone new. It was a man I'd seen three times in my life, who lives in a different state, and I hadn't talked to in over a month. He knew about Jay. He knew I was in a relationship. But, he wanted for no reason at all to know why I wasn't chatting anymore. I wasn't chatting anymore because I was at my boyfriend's house at the moment. And he was going to flip out for seeing that second text message from a second guy in one night. 

Jay became irate. He yelled at me. He accused me of being a liar. Thoughts racing through his mind like I had the intentions to sleep with these men? Or, that I'd been carrying on with each of them simultaneously while dating him? He said hurtful things that weren't true. I got really defensive though, I'd been honest in telling him that from time to time I would reach out to these people and initiate conversations. In times when I was asked to "give some space" or "leave him alone" with his thoughts. I couldn't handle the dead air time. I needed some attention and I'd sought it out in former lovers who I considered friends. 

It resulted in me getting in a cab and going home. Two days later and I'm still alone in my house. I've carried on the way anyone who has to does. I've worked and been to court. I even was granted the ability to change my name back to my maiden name, which is a feat, since my divorce isn't finalized. (It's bifurcated, and I don't even understand what that means, except to say that we are 'divorced' but not settled on any financial obligations or parenting agreements.) 

I let him be for the most part. But, the silence killed me. 

We fought again tonight on the phone and he accused me of not thinking about his feelings, of being selfish, needy and insecure. He helped me despise myself a little more. He took the dagger in my back and twisted it a little more. He told me "fuck you" twice during the conversation and I didn't even recognize him anymore. We hung up the phone when he had reached his son's school and the conversation has yet to be finished. 

I'm staring at this stupid computer. This codependency book. This iPhone full of contacts that I could ask to validate me, but can't fill this void. Repeat offender-- Failure-- he's here again. He's sitting with me, making me tense. Making me breathe short stunted breaths. Making the knot in my stomach ache. And all I want to do is run. Get my best dress on and go to a bar and bat my eyelashes and have someone take me home and tell me I'm beautiful and make me scream. And throw me away again. And walk home alone. And lay in this sick, disgusting bed and cry about all the times I failed to be enough to a man. And he failed to be enough for me. And how he probably had another woman in his mind as he fucked me. He probably had her vibrator still in his second drawer under his undershirts. Or her shirts. Things that still smell like her. 

And I would never be enough. 

"When we have surgery, the pain hurts most of the day after the operation. When we do the kind of work we are facing in recovery, we are doing an emotional, mental, and spiritual surgery on ourselves. We're removing parts of us that are infected and inflamed.

Sometimes the process hurts.

We are strong enough to survive discomfort and temporary feelings of emotional pain. Once we are willing to face and feel our discomfort and pain, we are almost to the point of release." 

Fuck you, Melodie (author of co-dependency book). Sorry, but seriously. Fuck off. There isn't any getting better at this. It's always going to suck. I can't erase this fight. We will surely break up (if we haven't already). And then I'll have to gather all the things around my house that remind me of him. Everything that belongs to him and shove it in a bag and have him pick it up. Or worse, drop it off to his house. The key to his house on my keychain will have to come off. The gifts he gave me... I've already thought it all through. I can't bring myself to explain it to the kids because they'll want to run inside and pet the dog one last time. They'll ask about him. They'll want him and his son to come and play. I know this already. They'll yearn for him to come back and so will I. But he won't. 

Should I give back the plants? Or stare at them for months until I can no longer bear to look at them and then throw them away. Or should I keep them, in the hopes that he'll come back and see that I've been watering them religiously and taking care of his memory. And that I'm good. And that he should take me back.