Solo
In the world of discoveries this is probably a modest one, but I discovered something about myself in the process of rebuilding my shattered life after the death of my wife last year. My default position appears to be reactive. Move only if someone else moves, most likely bred into me by a youth spent constantly being moved around the country by my parents. On the one hand it gave me great adaptive skills, but on the other it left me uneasy doing things on my own.
Of course, this isn’t a one size fits all lesson. I have done things on my own initiative. College for one. Starting a business for another. And I have gone by myself in recent years to listen to music. But over the course of my life there is an alarming number of cases where I mostly responded to someone else’s desires, and it is a depressingly long list. And my preferred method for doing things still is to do them in the company of a friend or acquaintance, seldom on my own, especially new things. Which makes me wonder, do I even know what I want anymore? That’s a puzzle.
Of course, maybe it’s not all bad. Another way to frame bending to the will of another is to call it compromise. And there is a great deal of sense in the idea that two heads are better than one. And there is no doubt that being in the company of a friend is great. But it does seem as though another word for caution is fear, and nothing I want to do at the moment resembles mounting a solo polar expedition or free climbing El Capitan. So, the only thing in danger is my psyche and at my age it probably has more scars than skin. So, I believe it might be time to investigate some great or even small unknowns. On my own.
John W. Wilson is the author of The Long Goodbye: A Caregiver’s Tale