At what age do couples start thinking that their single friends are hopeless, and must therefore be set up with another single friend - not because they have ANYTHING in common, but because they’re both single?
Oh right, that’s now. The ripe old age of 25.
Seriously, world: “Single” is not the only quality I’m looking for in a partner. How about thinking “I wonder if these two would like each other” instead of “Hmm, well I know a couple of single people… they must be meant to be!”
Sigh.
Children fall well. And often. They skin knees and bruise elbows, but generally they come out rather better than an adult would in the same situation. When children fall, they just fall. They don’t resist as much. They don’t fear as much. Their limbs are looser, they break less bones. Children, and drunk people. They don’t know any better. When adults fall, memories of so much previous pain flash through their heads as they stiffen and fall. Break.
I’ve been taking archery lessons. In the past two weeks, I’ve shot a lot of arrows. It’s an amazing feeling. I feel like a badass, when I release that arrow and it shoots into the target with whomp. It wasn’t until my 9th or 10th arrow that I release the bow string and it hit my left arm, stinging and almost immediately bruising. In that moment, I lost some of my badass-ness. My fearlessness. From that moment, every arrow I nocked I paused to overthink where my left elbow was, to wonder if I was going to hit myself again. I told myself I needed to go back to being fearless. Yes, it hurt. But not so much that it should hold me back. It’s a human instinct to avoid pain.
It’s been almost four years since I wrote this post about being afraid to fall. This morning, Lindz and I were talking about my injury, and the children we saw skating a few weeks ago. She said she wished she could still be like that. Fearless.
I wish I could be like that in many aspects of my life, I said.
I feel like with each painful memory, physical or emotional, I close myself off a little more. I find myself wishing for fearlessness. To jump, run, shoot as if it won’t hurt. To live like that, unafraid of pain. Because the pain passes. The bruises fade. Life goes on.
And it would be much more exciting if I were more fearless.
That awkward moment when you and your cousin/roommate end up dating the same person from an online dating site…
If you’re still reading this, hello.
I’m trying to get into the habit of writing about how I feel again. Currently it’s rather self-indulgent and melodramatic, I know. But I’m working on something, slowly spinning the more exciting bits of my life into something that someone, someday may read.
I’m using this blog to see what comes of writing, no holds barred, about how I feel.
Stay with me or stop reading, whichever you prefer.
a·lone
adjective
1.separate, apart, or isolated from others: I want to be alone.
2.to the exclusion of all others or all else: One cannot live by bread alone.
3.unique; unequaled; unexcelled: He is alone among his peers in devotion to duty.
adverb
4.solitarily; solely: She prefers to live alone.
5.only; exclusively.
6. without aid or help: The baby let go of the side of the crib and stood alone.
Alone offers choice. She prefers to live alone. Without aid or help. Stood alone. Alone is powerful, independent. Alone is a choice, a desire. Even unique, unequaled.
I am used to being alone. It’s something I learned - hard, but fast and well. It’s something I excel at - being happy with my own choice in my own time. Without aid or help. Standing alone. There’s no note of fear or regret in my alone. It is cherished, it is desired. Sought.
lone·ly
adjective
1. affected with, characterized by, or causing a depressing feeling of being alone; lonesome.
2.destitute of sympathetic or friendly companionship, intercourse, support, etc.: a lonely exile.
3.lone; solitary; without company; companionless.
There’s a tipping point on the fine line between alone and lonely, and I don’t know how it gets crossed. One minute I “prefer to be alone.” But then, on slow weekends like the one that just marched past, I find it tipped: destitute of sympathetic or friendly companionship, intercourse, support. A lonely exile. And I am lost in the affected, trying to climb back out on fingernails, and with too much to drink.
This space between alone and loneliness will swallow me up for days. But the definition is more than apt: it’s a lonely exile. Alone is my choice. Loneliness is a choice that others make for me.
Filed Under life | Hezabelle May 6, 2013 | 
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