If I haven't made it clear yet: I am real big into relationships. I always test extrovert. I used to never tire of company and think I could endlessly acquaint myself with people. Key phrase to note here is "used to".
This fall, I went through (or maybe am still on the exit of) a season of struggling, for lack of a more apt word. I felt like I couldn't really be around people. My well was run dry and where I would normally pack my time full of social activity and interaction, I secluded instead. Though it was out of character and I was aware of this foreign behavior, it never worried me. No, it wasn't that sort of seclusion. More the beat-down, worn-out person can't really do the whole be cheerful and engaged thing right now sort. So articulate, I know. I talk about it openly as I've felt like I am on the upswing. I think of it as having been a very strange season, but I also think I learned a lot and still am.
As I know I've written before, God and I have a lot of conversations and subsequent lessons on relationships. I love them, and they try me (which I know isn't specific to me). I am on a two-steps-forward, one-step-back journey of holding relationships open-handed (a phrase that's become Christian-ese to an extent, but is fitting.) There have been other times of being isolated, though unintentionally so, that were gray and painful. There have been relationships severed that have left me feeling broken. I have had to learn how to be with God when I have felt alone; how to be okay when He is the only one I have. That's still hard and I'm still learning, but I think it's good.
As a facet of this learning curve, and by some bizarre plot-twist, this autumn I learned to like to be alone in a way that often confused me. See, I used to hate it and while I'd still mostly rather be with someone than not, I don't loathe being by myself anymore. I value the time to process my day, or just let my mind rest and wander. I had never really thought I would enjoy being alone as much as I have learned to. Though it wasn't an especially enjoyable lesson, it is an important part of further growing up, for me.
My lessons aside, sometimes it is still incredibly difficult to go home alone. I don't mean that in any physical sense, or that of just "taking someone home" - rather, that it's one of the times when being single is the most potent. This was a night when that was difficult. Coming home with the simple desire to talk with someone who knows my story, knows my heart, and that I trust is rooting for me; a desire unquenched. It's a moment that it's hard not to be mad at God. "Yeah, yeah! I get it: lay down relationships, You're here for me - but right now, I just want someone tangible." And I don't mean the inane notion that another human will complete me. No. Companionship, partnership. Not unlike as children, when we returned home at the end of the day, someone was there to be on our side, ask about our day, seek to know our life. There's a comfort in that, and it's part of what makes it home. The lack thereof is what makes ending the day alone hard.
So for every coupled-off person who tells me to "enjoy being single," I can only retort: enjoy having a companion! Enjoy that you have someone to share a thought, that you have a partner in life, that when you lay your head down at night, it's next to someone else. Sure that has its challenges - it is two people in relationship - but I bet it sure beats the hell out of going it alone.
