fiftyfreeandsingle

Something has been making me feel uneasy in myself, God knows what it is, maybe that feeling of being on my own, i just dont feel “right”. I still cannot get used to being single, not yet any road, well its not even about getting used to being single, I think that it’s plainly ans simply I don’t want to feel alone.

So naturally I am trying to work out what is making me feel this way, is it just tied up with having not been single for twenty plus years? Is it just a problem adjusting to change? Is it loss – is it a desire for what i thought i had? or is it just that I function better and hence feel happier as part of a couple?

I am not confident enough in my own feelings to give myself a clear answer, that’s part of the unease.
If I understood I could work with it, navigate through and beyond. It’s a little like know knowing what ails you, if you go to the Doctor and you are told you have XYZ that’s a help, even if the answer is a horrible illness, when something has a name you can understand it, or begin to work with what you have, when you cannot buttonhole the problem how do you deal with it?

Over Christmas I was in a Restuarant, a rather nice one, In Fes.
I picked a posh French Restuarant for dinner with my Son.
As we sat down to dinner was I talking to my son about the potentially delcious food, No.
Was I interested in the plans for the following day, No.
Was I talking enthusiastically avbout the things we had done and seen, No.
Was my head full of Mosaics & Riads & Markets & Minarets? No.

My focus was on another table a few feet away from us, there sat a couple probably a similar age to myself, chattering busily in French, the man at fairly regular intervals put his hand over the hand of the lady affectionately. I wanted to understand the story, what was their relationship about, how long had they been an item, was it a long relationship, did they love each other, were they both as interested in one another. But of course I wasn’t really interested in them, it was about me, I was thinking they seem happy together, they are a couple, I am not.

Then I wanted to find the answers, why was this man in a loving relationship, what did he do right that I did not? I was on some level jealous, jealous they were together and a couple.
Looking back now I realise I was trying to make their story mine, it wasnt, how on earth could I decide they were in a loving relationship, that they actually even liked each other, it was all in my head, my story of what I wanted to see or think or believe. He could equally have been dumping her and the hand thing about consolation, there were countless scenarios, i just wanted to find the story that suited me.

If you have attachment to a situation then your view of the reality becomes like light seen through a prism, the colours you see are dependent on the prism you have created. Your prism is your interpretation of events not the truth. With attachement the light becomes bent and fragmented, it becomes fractured. To realise one’s judgement is potentially flawed is irritating at best, but then again at least to realise your judgement is not clear again puts a name to it, thats something to work with.

My sentimentality also is all my story, I realise that I am of late particularly sentimental, soft, easily moved, somebody will see an incident in the same moment as I. I may find the incident very moving and yet the other person may feel absolutely nothing, they have their own stories going on, most likely their own prisms. I am finding sentimentality, meaning, beauty, love in such a lot of things lately, but thats because its what I want to see.

I am quite at odds with the Buddhist concepts about non-attachment, my understanding is that Buddhist philosophy explains attachment as only ultimately bringing pain and discomfort, to be free one has to be non-attached, and yet beauty and meaning and feeling I only understand as coming as a result of attachment, to be truly alive and human is it not inevitable that we need attachment? I find this a knotty and baffling area, I need to look at it.

Several people have suggested I get a bit of counselling, I had thought it a bit of a waste of time, I was working through my stuff myself, but wtf as they say, whatever gets the job done, maybe I will, maybe I need a little help to move on.

Or I just give myself time, 24hrs after my little “uneasy episode” I am in a different state, now I finally have my Visa for India, plane tickets organised, travel plans made, I am escaping London and travelling thousands of miles away from all that’s familiar, all that’s humdrum, all that reminds me of the past. My outlook is entirely different, the excitement and anticipation of seeing India in all her colours has me feeling positive, the fog has lifted, I dont have a feeling of being trapped and claustropobic, I am ready for an adventure.

What was that song? What a difference a day makes, 24 little hours.

Indeed it does, a new day is around the corner, I am just going to do my best to enjoy what will be……………….