Home Alone
This is the month of revelations. The other day I looked back and realized how far I’d come since my college days, a long, long way. Then yesterday, I realized this is only the second time in my life I’ve lived alone. The first was a brief stint right out of high school when I took a job at the Houston Chronicle as a copyboy and had a room at the downtown YMCA. Between then and now I moved back home, joined the Navy, had a roommate, and then a wife and kids. That’s sixty years of always being in the company of someone. No wonder things feel strange these days.
Of course, people who’ve always lived alone are probably thinking, “You poor man.” While others might think, “That must be terrifying.” I think I’m somewhere in the middle. I like the solitude and the ability to fix things to my liking. But I miss the companionship. Luckily, after my wife passed, one of my sons was still at home. Not omnipresent, but here enough to be part of my life. His move to his own place in August was how I came truly to be on my own, and it was during a conversation with him yesterday that I realized just how long I’d always been in the company of others.
Luckily, however, and I’ve said this before, if all the moving the family did with my Navy father during my childhood taught me anything, it was how to adapt to new situations. I learned early on that the world is far from static, and the best way to deal with a new situation is just to get on with it. You can waste a lot of time moping about and chasing the past. You’re way better off expending your energy on making your present as good as you can get it. Now I just have to hope that if I fall, I can get up.