Ahhhhh Solitude

If you are a regular Singlutionary reader, you already know that a) there hasn't been as much to read lately and b) I live with a bunch of roommates and c) I am a wanna be urban farmer.

Tomorrow, I am having a party welcoming my chickens into my backyard. They've already been out back for a while now but their little chicken coop isn't quite complete without roof tiles. And the roof tiles are going to be made out of cut up beer cans. It'll take about 80 cans to finish the roof. So I'm having a beer can emptying/chicken roofing party. Its actually the first party I've had since moving into my home two years ago and kinda also serves as a housewarming.

I thought that the house would be extra crowded this weekend with all the roommates home because the party is tomorrow.

Instead, I find myself all alone.

And it feels great. Even when I'm in my room with the door closed, I am aware of other people being in the house. I make sure to be considerate, I try and look more presentable when I leave my room and I don't talk to myself out loud as much.

It feels great to have a day alone with just the dog and the chickens. I like being the only human in the house every now and again. I actually like it a lot. 

I think that I'm particularly sensitive to others and try to be considerate of them. So it is only when I am 100% alone that I feel completely myself. 

Of course, I've also been adjusting to going back to work and I'm around people a lot now. I enjoy it just as much as I enjoy this Saturday afternoon solitude. 

I know that this isn't a particularly insightful or interesting post but I just wanted to say something!

How about you? Do you enjoy solitude? Why? What is different about having other folks around and how can that be enjoyable too? 

Cutting My Singlution Some Slack

I had a 4 day weekend. And I didn't post once. Not once. I thought about Singlutionary. "Singlutionary" was all over my to-do list. I love writing this blog and participating in this online community of awesome happy singles. I have a list in my journal of things that I want to write about. 

I am frustrated because I am a perfectionist. And since going back to work full time PLUS still working with Bosslady part time my perfection level had dropped to complete non-perfection. In my 4 days off I desperately tried to catch up on stuff and only finished half my list. I did clean the house and finish building the chicken coop but I didn't fix my car window or catch up on blogging or even exercise. 

So I've decided to relax my standards. For now, at least.

And as a Singlutionary, I feel that relaxing my standards and cutting myself some slack is an excellent thing to do. Sometimes I expect myself to run my life as if I were a couple. I expect myself to bring home the bacon, cook wholesome meals, look pretty at all times and maintain an immaculately vacuumed carpet. You know how feminists talk about how women work and then they come home to the "second shift" aka housekeeping, child rearing, etc. Well. I have my own second shift, third shift, 16th shift. I expect myself to build chicken coops, work two jobs, fix my own car (which, by the way, is older than I am), eat super healthy organic homegrown and homecooked meals and write every day all the while looking like a lady of leisure with blow dried hair and manicured nails pushed into cute little heels.

Sometimes I think that I forget to take myself seriously because I am single. I forget how much I work or the value of the work that I do. I forget that I am running a household of four and despite the fact that I am biologically unrelated to any of of my roommates, I am still in charge of making sure everyone communicates, is generally happy and has enough toilet paper. I fall into thinking that I live a frivolous life because hey, I don't have a husband and kids so everything must just be easy like giggling while eating marshmallow fluff. Its OK. Every Singlutionary has her moments of non-singlutionary-ness. I forgive myself. 

But it is time to extend a few reminders to my Singlutionary self:

You're just one. This doesn't mean that I'm alone or lonely or that there is anything that I can't do. But it does mean that I can't expect to keep up with the JonesES. One person might be able to do more than half of what two people do but I still can't expect myself to work 50 hours a week AND have a normal life AND fix everything around the house in one weekend.  

You're just one AND you're part of a community: The only reason I was able to complete one of my long incomplete projects (namely, building a chicken coop which is all done save a lack of empty beer cans to tile the roof with --we'll be emptying the beer cans en masse in a few weeks) was with the help of my Habitat-for-Humanity-friend/former-roommate. She liked the chicken coop idea and has worked tirelessly with me to bring it to eggtion (I was trying to play on the word fruition but it didn't quite work). 

You're just one AND you're part of a greater community which you serve through your actions: Singles are often accused of being selfish or self centered by coupled folks. We're also accused of not being grown up. I think that sometimes I let this sneak in and eat away at my Singlution. Sometimes I think that my life is so fantastic that I MUST be selfish and self centered and that since I don't really have anything "serious" to do, I can just get all caught up in my own private and perfect life. 

Well. My life is great. I am so grateful for everything, for this blog, for the communities and friends which do support me, for my new job, for Bosslady, for my dog and for chicken poo. 

But that doesn't mean that my actions or my projects are irrelevant or unimportant. I am attempting to grow my own food not only for myself but to be shared with my roommates and friends. I am getting chickens to assist in pesticide free and organic pest control and to lay fresh eggs which I will not even eat (I'm allergic). I've created a sustainable business model by renting out furnished rooms in my home to people relocating to my fantastic city. I've installed rainwater collection barrels so that I can consume less water during times of drought (and its always a drought down here). 

I'm no Mother Theresa but my ideals and actions are not as much about myself (although I do enjoy my projects immensely) but about creating and sharing a wonderful space with people in-between cities, contributing to the quality of air and quantity of water in my city and basically being a good friend and neighbor. These are my interests and I am blessed to be able to pursue the life that I want to live and to see the things that I do have a small but stealthy impact on the world around me. Just being a joyful, loving person can uplift and inspire someone. 

Lately my volunteer duties have fallen by the wayside as I have had to spend more and more time on the house and then at work. And I've felt selfish. But the stuff that I do is a far cry from spending all day shopping for a new Segway. 

I am at once grateful for the wonderful people in my life and grateful that I can be a wonderful person in other people's lives. 

I still feel angst about the hallway being un-sanded and half prepped for painting six weeks and counting. I still want everything to be perfect.

But as I am learning with my car: as soon as one part is perfect, another part falls off. 

That is life. Its true if your single and its true if you're coupled. And its time I quit resisting and started celebrating this fact.  

Dear Reader: Please take a moment to pat yourself on the back. What do you do with your life that is doing good in the world even in a small, quiet way. How are you, even through doing things you love, unselfish? Where could you loosen up your own self imposed standards of perfection and cut yourself some slack?

Working Relationship

As my match.com experiment is coming to a close, I realize that I have learned quite a bit from dating. It wasn't anything I didn't already know but dating allowed me to put into practice my newfound standards, boundaries and ideals. I'm happy to say that I am no longer a desperate dater and I now have the experience and newfound confidence to prove it.

This freedom from desperate dating comes from knowing myself and enjoying my life. Its a lot harder to compromise myself into oblivion when I already love the life I am living. If a date doesn't call me I don't sit around thinking about all the things I might change about myself so that I would be more acceptable or attractive, I just shrug my shoulders and go look at the pumpkin vine in my backyard and marvel at how fast it is growing. I no longer expect first dates to lead to second dates which then lead to happily-ever-after. In fact, I don't expect some knight in shining armor to walk into my life, be perfectly compatible with me and sweep me off my feet. I'm just not worried about it.

Plus, its hard to sweep me off my feet without a struggle. I don't want to ride off into the sunset. I want to watch my garden grow and harvest the vegetables and carve jack-o-lanterns. I have roots and I have dreams and I'm not particularly keen on being carried off on a horse so that I can clean someone else's stables. 

I'm unwilling to give up the good things about myself in order to please or appease another person.

Lately, I'm having a parallel revelation in regards to my (nonexistent) acting career. I've spent so much time trying to be acceptable and marketable that I have totally forgotten who I am as an actor. I don't even enjoy acting. I don't even remember what good acting feels like. All I do is try and figure out what the agent, casting director, coach, client wants me to be. 

No wonder it isn't working out.

Just like any relationship-gone-wrong, I went into acting for love. I loved the way I felt when I was acting, I loved telling stories and I loved the way movies are made. I loved the collaboration and the project-centered work and I thought I had something to contribute. And I most likely did and I most certainly still do. 

But then came the advice. Relationships and acting are two things that everyone seems to unreservedly give advice on even if they suck at them themselves (look at me and all the relationship advice I give, for example)! Here is some of the advice I would constantly get as an actor: Why don't you change your image? Have nice nails, get a good haircut, look more asian, wear brighter colors, be skinny. Why don't you work on your audition technique? Don't blink too much, be confident, be relaxed, learn to speak with accents, learn to cheerlead, learn to ride a horse, learn martial arts. Why don't you: move there or move here or attend this function or that function or talk to this cousin of mine or that friend of my sister or why don't you hang out at this coffee shop? Why don't you take this class because the teacher is awesome and then you have to take that workshop because it will change your life and then you have to kiss this person's ass because it tastes like marshmallows. 

And in all this din, somewhere, was me. But I was fading by the second. No wonder I didn't feel confident and relaxed when I knew that inherently I had already screwed up by not having the right skills, the right personality, the right clothes, the right look. 

I don't know when it happened exactly, but over time this relationship stopped being about love and became about trying to be someone or something I am not so that I could be more attractive, more desirable, more bookable. And what for? What was I trying to attract? Did I really want to book that commercial with the cheesy script after all? How desperate was I for money/acceptance/success? How much money had I already spent on trying to improve my image or my resume? How much career success in other fields had passed me by while I was desperately trying to get ahead? How many days had I put off working on my car so I wouldn't have grease under my nails? How much of my own life had I sacrificed for this career and what was I getting out of it?

Nothing. 

So I'm breaking up with show business. One day I'd like to be friends with it but on my own terms; with dirt under my nails and wearing Birkenstocks (I don't really own any Birkenstocks but I couldn't find a better way to sum up my lack of desire to look like a proper Hollywood actress). Right now I just have to spend some time with myself and find an acting class which isn't about technique or auditioning and is just about acting for the sake of acting. Because good stories are still worth telling. And somewhere inside me there is still a good actor and I really need to find her. 

Awesomely enough, in the synchronicity of single blogs, Christina at Onely posted a humorous bit today about her romantic entanglements with her writing (aka Mr. Mike Rosoft Word).