That’s a strange word for me especially now. I have always been very independent out of sheer necessity. Even as a child I didn’t have much of a choice. My mom was busy trying to make it as a single mother in the sixties which wasn’t all that common so I was pretty much left to figure it out.Not that I ever really wanted to but it did help me to move ahead putting one foot forward in getting to wherever it was I was trying to go. Sometimes I fell flat on my face and sometimes I felt I could celebrate a victory. I don’t think that ever seems to leave you regardless of age or circumstances. It just settles differently with each passing year.
In being an age which seems like you should know where you are going or have succeeded in at least knowing what you have accomplished in life, I’m not sure I have figured it out. The decision I have made to go solo has many ramifications that can read positive or negative on any given day. Things I use to take for granted are not present anymore and I find I must direct myself in a different direction. Sometimes it can seem overwhelming but I think that happens anytime the norm has been switched up.
I’ve been writing these blogs for quite some time now and this one has been one of the more difficult ones to write. So many things to say but not quite sure how to say them or why I should even put them into words. It seems to me what’s more important right now is to feel what it’s like to be solo instead of trying to express it in words. At times it feels a cloud has lifted but other times it feels just plain shitty. Kind of like when you really wanted a night out to be the best ever and it turned out to be nothing you expected.
Relying on someone else for things that I now struggle with has shown me my tenacity and my vulnerability in places I wasn’t expecting. On the surface, I am scared to death and yet deep down I feel like I can handle just about anything. I’m feeling exhaustion like nothing I have felt before and yet there is a different energy in me that is just plain determination. Like jumping out of an airplane trusting the parachute will open. I’m trusting the parachute will be there for me. And I’ve chosen to jump all by myself.