17. Living Alone

Most of the time I like living alone; I can pick what I want to watch on TV without argument, if I don’t feel like doing the dishes I don’t have to, there’s no fighting over who gets the most comfortable chair (except for recently, while I’ve been cat-sitting. I think I’ve won the fight though).  This does not negate the fact that I would like to be married, or at least know that there is the potential for that… but I figure, if I have to be single (I’m still undecided) I might as well enjoy as much of it as I can.

But then something like today comes along and I realize how nice it would be to have another person around.  I took my dining room table in to a hardware store to get it fixed yesterday – actually, I only meant to take the legs in, but when I got there the guy asked me all these questions (about bolts, and fasteners, and L-bracket…uh…stuff) and I had no idea what he was talking about, so he asked me to just bring the table in so he could see for himself.  I spent about half an hour getting the table into my car, even though the legs were not attached… it was just heavy, and I kept thinking that if I had had just one more pair of hands it would have probably only taken about 5 minutes.  But… well, I was able to do it by myself.  But then today, when I went to pick it up again… that was another story.  The guy at the store helped me put the table back into my car, so that wasn’t a problem, but when I got back home all hell broke loose.  I don’t know if I can describe exactly what happened, but I’ll give you the highlights… I dropped the table on my foot – twice.  I swore in front of an old lady – at least twice.   I blocked the hallway in the basement of my building for several minutes, which would have been fine if it wasn’t for the fact that people were trying to get by – they were not mean, but they were also not happy.  Oh, and then there was the fact that everything just fell into pieces in the elevator, and the aforementioned old lady was stuck trying to hold the elevator open while stretching over my body as I tried to get all the pieces (legs, table top, screws, etc…) out so she could go on about her day.  She was actually really sweet, but I still felt really bad.

I know I could call a friend for help, but it seem so frustrating that I have to do that any time I need an extra pair of hands.  I feel like I’d be using them… or that they might feel that I’m using them.  I do it when I have to – I borrowed a friend’s husband to go car shopping with me, and I originally asked some friends to help me fix my table (it turned out I needed something from the hardware store which is why I ended up going there instead), but today was different.  I didn’t need skill, I just needed hands.  

I suppose a roommate would have helped me with the table… but, well, I don’t want a roommate.  I loved having roommates while I had them; but now that I’ve lived alone I don’t want to be living with, and compromising with, and making decisions with a person who is probably not a permanent part of my life… and who, let’s face it, is just a roommate.  If I’m going to go through all of the things that come with living with another human being, I want it be something more significant than that.  The frustrating thing is, that ‘something more significant’ is something that I want… it’s not a ‘take it or leave it’ thing.  It’s not a case of “well, if I can’t have marriage then I guess I’ll just travel a lot”… it’s a case of  “I’ll travel a lot to try and distract myself from the fact that knowing that I’ll never be able to get married makes me miserable.”  

I wish I could just find some hope somewhere, some hope for more than a distraction, more than “sublimating” my desires with other things… That’s been suggested a few times, and to be perfectly honest, I’m not sure what it means... instead of getting married I help the poor?  Is it really an either/or thing?  Are married people not supposed to help the poor?  I mean, that’s ridiculous… so how come they get to help the poor and have a loving spouse at home?  I don’t get it.  

Anyway, those are my thoughts today… all inspired by dropping a table on my foot and saying ‘fuck!’ in front of an old lady.   In my defense, it really hurt!