This is the first time I've lived alone. Yes, I was alone in my University Lutheran apartment last year, but let's face it, you're not really alone when you live in the basement of a church. (Just ask me about that time two parishioners thought I was dead...) Anyway, it truly is a struggle to live alone. I have a lot of examples of this, but let's start off with this picture.
Single Life Struggle: when you have so few visitors that you don't do dishes for weeks (because who is going to see them?), and you are disgusted with yourself, but not enough to care until you really have nothing to eat off of and there is an unknown variety of mold growing in your sink, and you realize that almost every single dish needs to soak, but your sink isn't big enough for that, so you find a plastic storage bin and fill it with soapy water and put your dishes in it and still not all of them fit.
And then there's this:
Single Life Struggle: when you are living alone in a new place and you're trying to figure everything out (trash pickup, new doctor/dentist/veterinarian, good restaurants, taxes, insurance, bills, etc.) and you want to be a good citizen and recycle but that's another phone call you can't ask anyone else to make and you're just so tired of figuring things out that you save all your recycling (that's not even half of it) and keep telling yourself "I'll call tomorrow"... for five months.
This is what I mean when I tell people over the phone that I'm quite sure my house is messier than yours, thank you very much.
I know this is kind of a weird thing to blog about, but here's why I'm doing this. It's not to tell you that I don't like where I am. On the contrary, I love Enid and I love Redeemer. I'm sharing my Single Life Struggles with you because I feel alone a lot, and I don't think I actually am. These stories are embarrassing to me, but I don't think I'm the only person who struggles to wash their dishes. I don't think I'm the only person who doesn't like making phone calls. So if this strikes a chord with you, tell me. Maybe we'll both feel less alone.
(I feel like I should add - I'm sure these struggles aren't necessarily restricted to single people living alone. However, I think being single and living alone make these struggles not more difficult, but just... different.)
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