Soon I will have the house to myself again. And gangsta Will is talking about leaving for Los Angeles next week since school is out and since opportunity is a dead-end for him out here. Who could blame him. Which means that my only physical, in-person contact will be Marcus, who comes once per week for 8 hours to help me clean and stuff and to stretch and massage me. But I am not certain how long I can afford to keep that up, although I know that he is also my friend. That dynamic will change when I can no longer afford to pay for his services. (He is talking about renting his house out when the floor is installed, and then moving up here to seek work, and renting my room, but that is potentially a long way off, and cannot be counted on for the purpose of this contemplation). So, no matter how you slice it, I will soon be an empty-nester once again.
.Is this my rock bottom? Has my ability to delay gratification to some future time that will never occur completely run out? If so, what do I need to do in order to prepare myself for coming face-to-face with my greatest fear becoming reality? Or, rather, how can I prepare myself for being able to accept that my greatest fear has actually become my reality? And in so doing, how can I move toward accepting this with grace and ease instead of continuing to deny and resist and reject it, which has not served me?
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How will I attempt to structure my days, my thought patterns, hell, my entire life, so as to no longer spend one more moment thinking about and hoping that I will find a romantic partner who will eventually live with me? Continually comparing my current situation with that idyllic future which will never exist continues to rob me of the present. Continuing to compare that idyllic state with my current reality makes me no longer want to participate in the present, and if that does not change, I will obviously not be here much longer. So, I have to face and accept my fate. I have to accept singledom. I have to learn to love the thing I have most despised and hated. I have to accept myself and my entire life as a complete and utter failure from the standpoint of getting my needs, wants and desires met. And I must learn how to derive value and pleasure from things that currently do not bring me value or pleasure. I suppose you could call this the biggest challenge I have ever faced.
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There was a book written about this subject several years ago, something about "They Moved My Cheese," the general gist of it was about what to do when you get where you thought you were going only to discover that it was not what you expected at all, and the rules of the game had changed, and you basically had to start over from scratch. I guess it is time to read that book to see what insights it has to offer.
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At this point, I would be satisfied with being happy and deriving pleasure from simply getting out of the bed each day, showering and bathing each day, eating 3 meals each day, performing some activity each day (walking for example), and being outside as much as possible especially on warm weather days. Since I have not been able to do any of these things in many months, seeing my activity level rise to that rate and stay there, and being happy while doing it, would be a major switch, and something to work toward for sure.
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Along with this has to come a certain level of satisfaction with being in solitude, and happy with myself and my surroundings at all times, whether or not anyone else is ever present ever again. I do not want to feel held hostage by my solitude any longer. I am not at all sure about how to go about fixing that little issue, since it is so totally tied into my self-worth issues (or rather worthlessness issues), since the solitude only serves to reinforce my feelings of worthlessness and societal rejection. The objective is to be able to see myself as worthy regardless of whether anyone else agrees or disagrees, or whether they behave in ways that make me *feel* that they agree or disagree. I have to separate my sense of worth from all sources other than how I feel about myself. Of course, I have no idea how this is going to work, how to do it, or what it looks like, and professional help will be requested once I get eligible for Medicare and get signed up for Part A, B, D and a Supplement. Then I can run off to the crazy farm if I feel the need.
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For now, I just have to hang on, keep eating, I especially love the Trader Joe's hemp and flax cereal with berry yogurt and blueberries. And for now, that's probably all that I *can* do. Also, continuing to observe my anger, since I am now aware of a very deep and embedded layer of anger that I have about this subject, about how unfair it all is, about society and dating and attraction and human behavior and all of it - I am so incredibly angry at the whole thing. Being aware of it and observing it will allow me to transcend it eventually, I hope, but right now I just have to agree to observe it, to be gentle with myself, and to not try to "fix" it, simply observe. Eventually the idea is to no longer direct that anger toward myself. For now, I just have to recognize that it is there in the first place. And, boy, is it ever.
