Singlutionary's Guide to Letting Yourself Off the Hook

For the New Year I came up with a schedule and a plan to manage my time better so that I could post more often! After one week and one day, I realize that it is time for a revision!

So Tuesdays will continue to be Singlutionary's Guide to Whatever day. But some Tuesdays I am going to let myself off the hook and merely post the topic for the NEXT week.

So. Next Tuesday I'll post Singlutionary's Guide to Finding Badass Roommates, Part 1: Renting out a Room.

To be followed on another Tuesday this month by: Part 2: Renting a Sweet Pad in a Peaceful House.

Today I am letting myself off the hook. There isn't one good reason that I should do this. There are lots of small reasons and I'll list them here:

Yesterday I was surprised by a phone call from someone investigating my ex and I had to deal with that situation and rehash that whole shitstorm. Of course, when the shitstorm was over, I had risen from the asses (ashes) as The Singlutionary, so on some level I have to be grateful for the experience but I still felt shaken, remembering how I was ready to commit the rest of my life to this psychotic neurotic liar.

I am flat broke which is putting me on an awesome diet where I have to eat all the healthy stuff in my cabinets that I have been avoiding eating for the past year.

All my roommates are moving or have moved out and I don't have any new renters yet (but I know that I will-- I always do). But change is good.

I've had one job interview so far with a woman that I liked at a property that was OK but I know that I do not want the job and I suspect that it will not be offered to me.

I've been working a regular work week this week doing temp work. I call depressed people and interview them to see if they qualify to be in a research study. Most of them fail to qualify. This job makes me so grateful for every little thing in my life and for being able to be happy and being able to see through the fog when I am not.

One of my former roommates has declared bankruptcy.

Last night there were Possums under my chicken coop. Fortunately my new room is at the back of the house near the chickens so I'll be able to hear if anything goes wrong tonight. But I hope that by the time I hear the squawking, I'm not too late!

It is already 10pm and I still need to read my blog roll!

Singular Satisfaction vs Pitiful Pining

Lately I have been having a hard time finding things to write about mainly because my life is so great. One reason that my life is so great is because I am no longer a pitiful piner!

I will admit that forever and forever and forever I would go to sleep while imagining snuggling with some well-defined-abs-man. I don't do that anymore. Its bizarre that this lifelong habit (I started this pre-puberty although then he didn't have abs: Instead he had a great GI Joe collection or something like that) has so suddenly vanished.

And I'm glad to be through with it however, I feel that there is something to be gleaned from this oh-so-lame part of my past:

I've spent more time pining way for guys than I have spent in actual relationships with them. Being a pitiful piner is convenient because I could always fixate on some sexy object of my affection and go to sleep with my hand resting on his imaginary abs but I never had to actually deal with him. I never had to pretend I wasn't farting in his presence. I never had to actually spend the night with him and get all pissed off when he kept me awake by snoring like a pig and then moving his finely muscled body into the middle of the bed while I clung to the side like an inept cliff dweller. I never had to pretend I wanted to spend an entire holiday with his parents.

Pining is a great way to imagine being in a relationship without having to sacrifice anything. When I was super tired and dropped into bed after working 16 hours, I never had to worry about how absalicious's day was. I could pine away when I had time and when I didn't he just vanished.

How delightfully convenient.

Over the past four years or so I've slowly become aware of my pining tendencies. But it wasn't until after a really luducris breakup this summer that I realized the extent of what I had been doing.

Pining is a problem because no real relationship will ever match up to the expectation developed as a piner. The longer you've pined, the harder its going to be to adjust to a real human relationship. I suspect that pining is typical of very independent folks who are pretty satisfied with being on their own yet somehow feel that something is missing. I thought it was harmless but I am now convinced that is is not.

Why?

Well, I got a boyfriend. I wasn't even pining away for him. He just kinda appeared in my life. And I tried to fit him in and make things work but melding two full formed lives together is a challenge and not one for the weak-of-heart. It turned out that my life was far better without him. But I only discovered this after we parted ways.

Ironically, I'm now being treated to life on the other side of the pining problem. The ex-boyfriend is now pining away for me. And I know that what he wants isn't really me with all my fire and independence and lack of desire to procreate but some idealized concept he has of me which is in no way based in reality. I know this because he writes me pages and pages of pitiful pining about this and that and leaves these books on my doorstep or in my mailbox. And the more I read of it (I don't read it anymore) the more I see that he has no idea who I really am.

Pining is a way to feel romance and intimacy without every interacting with a real person. It might be about imagination: There was a time when I thought that my pining was merely me manifesting a relationship a-al-The-Secret. But it is only about one person's imagination and doesn't leave much room for the wonderful surprises which come with getting to know a unique individual.

How did I quit my pitiful pining? I am not sure. It happened shortly after I started this blog and it hasn't come back. I am so infinitely satisfied with my life and I feel so loved and supported by the various people around me that I no longer feel the need to pine away for someone. I am putting all my passion for absalicious into my volunteer work and my real work and my house and my dog and my various delightful real life (plutonic) relationships.

Like I said, I WAS an independent woman who was satisfied with being on her own but felt like something was missing. This recent breakup and its aftermath have so clearly illustrated to me that nothing has been missing this whole time. I have been living a creative, adventurous, delightful, love-filled life. The only thing missing (which I now possess) was a calm clear understanding that my life is overflowing with fullness and love and comfort and security. Only when I am ready to accept the breadth and depth of all that is available to me will I be able to meet the real life absalicious (or beer gutted) man of my dreams.