OUT OF THE CALENDAR

When I was a kid, I needed everyone to see that I could do anything considered scary, and do it by myself. That meant not hesitating before climbing tall trees or watching horror movies that secretly terrified me. Often it meant impulsive decisions with little regard for consequences. I was no adrenaline junkie; it was all about trying to manipulate people into seeing me as “brave.” To me, scared meant weak, and that was unacceptable. Fast forward 20 years later and I’m still that seven year old kid, yelling, “Look at me Mama! Look at me Grandma! Look at me Tita! Look at what I can do!” “I can do this! ‘ I can do all that”!

Last weekend, a stranger wondered at the fact that I could attend a group date without a date. He could never do that, he told me. He would rather just stay home than ever go to group date alone. And I was speechless when he says that. 

So I quickly moved away from the conversation eager to get away from his fears...Our fears.

Then I think of this:
“If I only went places where someone accompanied me, I would never go anywhere. Don’t be afraid to do things you want to do because you don’t have a ‘date’ you are your own best company.
The importance of loving your life even if it’s not exactly what you pictured. How can you appreciate what do you have and take advantage of all comes with it. How traveling alone can be wonderful and even more fulfilling than traveling with a companion. No, this is not true.
The whole truth is that you can love your life and still yearn for what missing.
It’s difficult to reconcile: being proud of what you can do alone and desperately wanting to not have do it.

Last year I wrote about turning 30 and how it meant letting go of a life I had imagined for myself and replacing it with something else, something I was already living. But the real truth? (Again the but) I stopped short of the part where I admit that even in my happiness, there is still sadness. That I do still want a partner. I have accepted that don’t have it now and I have made my life work without it because that’s what I had to do. It wasn’t brave, or strong, it just was.

Because you adapt and you let go and you accept or you won’t be able to get out of bed in the morning.
I am 32 and it’s wonderful, lonely, exciting, full, liberating, strange, multifaceted, sad, challenging, adventure-filled, eye-opening, ever-changing and completely scary every single day. It’s real life, in all its complexities.

And it’s mine.