Hello and good morning folks, how's your day going?
Yesterday was a busy day for me. The date went well, at least I think it did. We walked around the mall a little, talked, and then went to this store she liked that I can only describe as the craftiest craft store on the planet. This place had everything you can possibly imagine for any type of craft you might want to do. She had been there before, so she knew exactly what she was looking for, and found it. Soap making kits. I have only seen those in one other craft store I have been to, so I'd say that means that this store had everything. Wood working stuff, felt, fabric, I mean everything. So that was fun, to just wander around looking at what they had. Then, we went to see "The Thing", at the movie theater across the street from the craft store. It was a good movie, and the special effects were very good. I always love a movie with good special effects, no matter what the movie is about.
Anyway, after the movie she had to go home, so I took her home and met her family. I met her parents, her brother, and not only her children, but her sister and her brother's kids too. She lives close to an hour away from where I do, so the drive home was pretty long, and I had time to do some thinking.
For the first time in my life, I really feel like I am alone. Not in a bad way, I mean being on my own. I have the freedom to do whatever I wish, and for someone who has not had that, ever, it's a pretty sobering thought. I knew when I got down here that it would be a new life, but I didn't envision it like THIS. No one tells me I HAVE to do certain things at certain times, no one argues with me, no one is constantly in my face telling me I have to think a certain way, or do things a certain way. But there's more to it than that, and this is the part that I did not foresee.
I myself have changed. In Tennessee, I was living with friends, just as I am now. But up there, it just seemed like I didn't have the freedom to do what I wanted when I wanted, and I realize now it was because of the way I approached it. I could have gone out and done lots of things, but I didn't. I still had the shrew in mind, what she would think of whatever it was I was doing, and I was afraid of her coming and doing something to me. She only lived an hour down the road, making it seem like she was next door or something, at least in my mind. Now however, I feel like I have broken away, and even though I am still living with friends, I realize now what it means to be on my own. You can be living with someone and still be on your own. They have their own things to do, their own daily schedule, which has nothing to do with me, nor is it affected by anything I do. I truly have the freedom to do whatever I wish, as long as it does NOT impinge on something that they want to do. Which is pretty easy to accomplish.
Bella has made me feel more at home here than I have felt most anywhere else I have ever lived. But at the same time, she has shown me what it means to have total control over my own life, and it's nice. A little strange for someone who has not had it in ANY of the 40 years I've been alive. I am really looking forward to having my own place now, for as sad as it sounds, most of my life I was deathly afraid of being "alone", and it stopped me from doing everything required to become independent.
Being alone is not what I thought. I thought it meant not having anyone that cared about me, not having anyone to come home to. But it's not. It means having your own agenda, your own desires and feelings, and being your own person, separate from everyone else. It's a mental thought process like anything else. You can get wrapped up in emotions, and think things are about who cares about you and who doesn't, but in reality, none of that matters if you are your own person. There's nothing wrong with not having anyone to call "your own", that one person who cares about YOU more than anyone else in their lives. It's ok to be alone, because in truth, every single one of us IS alone, we are all unique individuals, and no one else perceives things like we do.
If you've read any of my earlier posts, you can see that even though I left her close to 2 years ago, and I was not dealing with her directly, I still had the same thought process, the one that says I HAVE to have someone else's approval, I HAVE to have that person who cares about me, or I am "alone". I thought more with her "brain" than I thought with mine. What I didn't see was that it was much more than just thinking with her brain. It was an emotional thing, wanting to have someone that cared about me and only me, and I was willing to put up with all kinds of torture just to have that feeling. The emotional thinking makes being alone feel like you're on an island by yourself, with no one that cares, and the fear of that happening takes away all of your individuality. But being alone is a natural thing, not emotional, everyone IS their own island, and it's not a bad thing at all.
A lifetime of emotional thinking takes a while to retrain. It's happening slowly, but I think yesterday I took a big step in the right direction.
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