On my own
Saturday, September 18, 2010 at 10:50PM 
After living for 12 years together, after being through pain and love and birth, me and my husband decided to go our separate ways, to allow ourselves to be happy and to show our kids that they can be happy too. We both bumped into each other one day and we've grown up together, but we realized we are so different that it is too much work to adjust and make peace at home. I changed dramatically over the last year. After being dependent on others for most of my life - for love, for caring, for roof over my head - I'm suddenly not needy anymore. I'm on my own. And I'm scared no longer. I don't have to prove my worth to anyone - I know it from within. I don't have to show my parents that I can - I know that I can, and that's enough for me. I am not sure of the future, but I realize that all there is to it - the future. It's a word, a concept, it is not here, and I will deal with it when it will arrive. The past no longer drives my decisions or my self. I'm in the now, and there is no better place to be. It's a glorious feeling, it grounds me, I'm centered. I'm still battling with emotional storms, and I yet have to learn to balance things - I tend to live in the all or nothing world - but slowly it is coming my way. Friends are helping.
I swim in this feeling, in the calmness. I glide. Without weight. Movements are effortless. Thinking is easy. Light is soft - just enough to illuminate the next few feet in front and not blind me on the way forward. I guess the only comparison to this is like being in the womb - safe and secure. Except I don't have to be born again, I already have, and now I live in this world. I've created it. It's endless. I can go in any direction - there are no boundaries. I can go up as high as I want - there is no ceiling. I go dive as deep as I want - there is no bottom. Freedom is liberating. I held on to boundaries in the past for fear of it, for fear of not being able to make my own steps, for having to hold on to something - or someone - secure. Now I know it's a myth. The security itself is another concept that we like to hold on to. We think - there must be someone, or something - that cares, that will always catch us when we fall. We spend our whole lives searching for that person - only to be disappointed over and over again. Why do we do that? Why do we torture ourselves with something that doesn't exist? Because of fear. Fear is one of the strongest primal feelings, and it's keeping us in check. It gets us immobilized. Until, one day, we learn to stop looking. We learn we have to be able to catch ourselves, and when we do that, when we stop expecting anyone to do it for us - a miracle happens. We fall, and a thousand hands reach out, a thousand arms form a net, and catch us. We're not alone, but we didn't allow others to catch us before. We pressured, we asked, we cajoled. None of these work. Love only works by being given freely. And when we give freely, others give back.
I tend to close off into myself whenever I have a problem. Today I saw a girlfriend, another one I haven't seen in years. I had to make myself go, I didn't like the idea of socializing again - it is hard for me sometimes, after a diet of being mostly at home, mostly alone or only with my family. It was stiff at first between us, but then it happened. Without effort, we helped each other. We talked things out, we listened, we caught each other in the falling. Without any expectations. I felt like we swam next to each other in that wonderful world, and the connection between us strengthened. I tried to convince her of something, but gave up soon, remembering - it is not my place to force, I have to let her be. Swim. Freely. I have never done this before. I'm famous for "bending" people my way. I used to not listen to people, I used to filter them through my own view of the world. Today I saw someone from her own perspective, and it changed mine. It added to it. It got richer.
I love this new thing - called "being on my own". Ever since I ran away from home at 16, I have either been pregnant, or mom, or married, or a student, or married again, a student again in another country, then pregnant again as soon as I graduated, unable to work due to my status, dependent, not making money, not being employed. This year everything changed. I have work, I'm no longer with a baby, I'm getting out of debt and the marriage. I'm 34, and I'm only beginning my life. They say, it's never too late. I don't care what they say, I say it's perfect timing. Off I go - forward!
Photo by Leo Lam.
Reader Comments (2)
Brave and beautiful life-work. Thank you for sharing Ksenia. Many kind blessings ~
Angela - thank you. It really is life-work, isn't it? I didn't think of it this way.