Alone

Yesterday my grandma asked me when I was going to find myself a 'comrade'. She couldn't find the right word. She wants me to have a boyfriend, but she doesn't have the terminology for this kind of things. She's been married how many decades now? I'm 24, so she thought I'm old enough to be talked to about things like these. Apparently my great-grandma was a match-maker. Sure, it may have worked when they lived in a tiny village, only on what they cultivated on their own land. Now we are so many and we own so little, how could we make a living? And how could I find someone responsible and willing to grow something with me, while accepting me as a person, being interesting enough and taking care of their own well-being? Could you build a good life with someone you can't trust? How about my communication issues? I've tried to hone my listening and communication skills during the past years, it was my way of becoming more social. If I listen to you better, does that mean you'll like me more? Or does it mean you'll use me to vent you worries and pains in a safe, cozy, non-judgmental environment? Probably the second, since I've been in that situation so many times. The more I learn about communication and feedback, the worse I see everyday interactions in general.

Today, while riding the bus back home, an older person invited me to a sip of pălincă, a local amber-colored liquor. I declined politely, but he used that as an opportunity to tell me he had been a wrestling champion for 7 years (or was it 5?) during the '70s, that he had two successful kids and that it was a pity that such a pretty girl like me didn't have someone waiting for her at home. That was odd. Why would anyone care whether there's someone waiting for me at home?

A few days ago, a friend asked me how come I live alone. Don't I get lonely? He needs to hear the buzz of people wasting their brains on nothing in order to concentrate. As far as I know, he hasn't been happy during the last five years, surrounded by that buzz. So why should living alone in silence be a problem? I meet people, I do stuff with them, I go to the university every day and I talk to my colleagues and I learn new things because that's how it's supposed to be. I go to various events, I organize some of them, sometimes I even see my sister. But I was so tired of the constant animation. In Ostrava it was too much, the guy in my duplex was crazy. If you need a model for a Polish stereotype, you need to meet him and his girlfriends who lived 3 doors down the hall. Before that, in the university dorms in my home country, it was worse. No time for oneself, no silence, no space to just be...

Sure, it would be nice to wake up next to someone every morning. Next to some fascinating someone and not quite every morning, most mornings. Sometimes it's nice to just have the bed for yourself. But it's not going to happen any time soon. There is a lot of work that needs to be done for that and it requires two compatible people who can listen to each other and make jokes about anything and enjoy simply being. Two people who can grow together, learn every day from each other, take a break once in a while to experience something new. I have found someone who can be that person for me. Unfortunately, he lives too far away for me to do anything about it right now. I can just go on with my life, enjoying my alone-ness, not my loneliness, learning, creating, writing, feeling and over analyzing, growing, learning to let go. We may or may not be, there is no way of knowing, the future does not exist.