Being Alone Together

There was a time when I never ever wanted to be alone, so I always had someone by my side; I guess it was a fear of being abandoned. When I was seventeen, I proposed for the first time to a girl. Her father said “No way! Get out!” The second time I proposed, I was nineteen, and that girl said “Yes!”

Twenty-four years later, we split up, and I asked a third woman if she would marry me, and she said “Yes!”

After that marriage failed, three years later, I asked the fourth woman, the final one, and she said ‘NO!”

Up to this point, I hadn’t ever been on my own, not since I was thirteen years old. I was scared, with no one to be with all the time. I could not understand why she said no, so I asked her why. Her answer was “You don’t like yourself. You don’t even know yourself. So how could you truly love someone else? Ask me again when you know and you like who you are.”

That took ten years.

In those 10 years, I learned what I was worth, and to not only like myself but to love myself. Before we commit to anybody, we must know who we are. I see so many people today who go into relationships only to break up tomorrow, or to stay in a miserable place out of fear of being alone. We should all be alone until we know who we are, not someone who someone else molded into who they needed them to be, but someone true to themselves… Then they can be true to another.
We should be able to stand alone, so that we are not lonely while we are alone, and able to rely on ourselves without being needy. I can be anywhere with someone and not even feel the need to talk; just knowing that they are there is enough… Alone Together.

At times, I am the one who is more needy in the house, but can still stand alone if need be. It is okay, even excellent, to be interdependent, but we must have the ability to be independent, to allow us to continue to grow and to become all we can be. Given wings to fly, we can reach our dreams… and keep on dreaming, dreams for a lifetime. Learning to stand alone, I learned how to live fully.