When I say alone, I mean without other adults. There are two kids and two dogs in my house and from morning to night I am almost never ALONE. I rarely have private conversations, and 90% of the time I get walked in on in the bathroom. I am just talking about another living being that communicates on roughly the same level that I do.
Not these noobs, who are only halfway through the Sorcerer's Stone.
Anyway, the thing I dislike most about living alone is that there is a certain solidity to being able to check in with another person on a regular basis. Some days you have a shit day, and just need someone to listen while you talk about it. Some days you have a great day, with roughly similar results. Some days you need someone to watch your favorite TV show on the couch with you, cause that's all you have the energy for but you need company. Some days you just have a lot of feels, and you need someone to ground you, and remind you that there's more to life than whatever is poing-ing around on the inside of your head.
When you live alone, getting that sense of solidity becomes more difficult. Don't get me wrong, I feel pretty secure within myself. I know what I want, I know what I'm doing, and in general I am prepared to take on the world, although I'd much rather have a whiskey with the world and see if we can come to some mutually acceptable accommodations. But I can take on the world if I have to, and that's a comforting feeling.
And if I can't take it on, I can at least piss it off.
Anyway, my point is that I'm not talking about a lack of security in myself. I'm talking about something a bit more indicative of our status as a pack species. About the way people need to reflect their own experiences off of others.
Or maybe that's just me. Maybe no one else feels the need for that. But I'm betting we do, given that most of us spend the first 20 to 30 years of our life in a mad dash to find someone who will promise to reflect us forever. Some of the more sensible ones among us show a little more restraint. Some of the more unlucky of us spend much longer, or go through the whole process two or three or four times. But there are a precious few of us that actually want to spend our lives without a companion of some sort, and I think it's because in general we really need that kind of pair bonding.
We all need someone to be grumpy with.
So, the thing I dislike most about living alone is that there's no one that I can reliably count on to be around if I need someone to rehash my day with. Now, I have some excellent friends. I think I can legitimately claim that, if I called them and desperately needed them, they would be there for me. And that's comforting as hell, I gotta tell you. But it's not quite the same as having someone that you know will be sitting on your couch most nights, ready to listen to the minutia, or wanting to share their own.
Not the same, but still pretty freaking awesome.
There are lots of things I like about living alone. I like the fact that no one gets cranky with me if I am slow to do the dishes, and that I can basically sing as loud as I want in the kitchen. I like that literally everything in my house runs off a schedule I choose, and that I can eat broccoli with butter on it for dinner if that's what I feel like. Those things are great. They're magical.
But none of those things can keep me company while the stars fall.
Which, I suppose, is just something I am going to have to accept.
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