Samhain 2008-closing the door on grief and facing the fear of living alone

Samhain is a Wiccan time year of letting go of old things, facing up to fears and to prepare, in the quiet of this dark time of the year, for the new. It is a crossroad of the year, a time to make an honest and realistic evaluation of your life. It is deep in the dark and silence of the earth where the seed waits to grow.

This past year has been a very difficult one for me, a year full of loss, sorrow and grief. I have lost a lover. I have lost my beloved cat of 18 years, Ariel. I let go friends that were not positive forces in my life. I have been to edge of woman’s grieving madness. There were times when I wanted to die myself to escape all the pain and sorrow.

Here in the Celtic New Year, I close the door on all that sorrow. In order for me to move along a new road I must let go of those things that have died in my life. This doesn't mean I forget or don't stop to remember. Rather it means it is time for me to move on and put away my grief and sorrow.

The anniversary of Jeff's death is coming up - and that is when I will put the things I have that were his away. I will take down his pictures. I will make one last memorial to him and our time together and to my grief. When these things are put away it will be over and done. On that anniversary I move on.

I spend this season between Samhain and Yule preparing for new things by stepping into the quiet of winter and I focus on caring and loving myself and making myself happy.

Now there is a fear I must face and name – living alone.

I envy my married friends and family – they, at least in theory, have a partner to stand with them in life. To be there, one hopes, through thick and thin. Someone who is there to support and understand.

And I am sure my married friends envy me because I don’t have that attachment. I am free to do as I please, I don’t have to consider another. I don’t have to be responsible for someone else.

As appealing as living alone may sound it is a huge burden to living with someone else – I can’t rely on any one else but myself. There is no one here to take care of me when I am sick. Nor is there someone there whose shoulder I can cry on or turn to when things are rough, even for me to support them throught thick and thin. It is only me to push to get things done, to clean, go to the doctor, take care of financial matters. I don't have anyone else to fall back on. There is no one to balance off my weaknesses or my triumphs. There is no one around to calm me down when life gets too stressful. I am the one who must talk myself down from my panic and fear. I must do it all for myself – I must keep myself in balance. I don't have another to balance off external or intimate to me. I face sorrow and grief alone.

Yes, maybe everyone should try to be this responsible for their own life, but it is hard – especially as I get older. Having faced the deep grief of death, and as I turn to something new, I find that I want to put things in order. To try safeguarding my future – without a significant other if I must.

You might say “well, your friends and family will help.” That only goes so far. Oh! Yes, I have friends who are there for me and who help me out. I have a wonderful posse of friends who have helped me through my grief and sorrow, and I am grateful for their help and understanding. But ultimate I had to face all of those things alone, with my own strength or courage, or even lack of it. I was the one who had dig deep into me and find ways to cope. We all must do that at some points in our lives, but I have to do it all the time.

This is one thing that couples don’t understand about their single friends. Because they are a couple they loose sight of being single, of having to take care of your self in every sense of the word, frequently without the help of others.

I certainly hope that things change for me, that I do find that significant other. But I am also are realist and know that I have to take care of myself without that intimate support.

I don’t want to be pitied rather understood for my struggle. I have the strength to live alone, if I must – and I must for that is where my current reality is. I can tackle only so many problems at a time, work to improve my life. But doing alone with only my courage and resources is limiting.

This maybe where I hit the sociology of being a single woman. Society still looks very differently on single women then it does single men. At least I have sensed and even experienced this. I don't have as much standing in either my family or in society in general. While my parents didn't push me to marry - I am sure they worry because I don't have a man to take care of me. I think my parents still feel a little responsible for me because I haven't married. I think society still holds on to the notion that if a woman isn't marries she is somehow incomplete. That isn't as strong as it use to be, but these notions do still subtly work on how people act over time. Now, I also know, and have experienced this, that single woman don't have as much economic clout. I certainly don't have the financial standing of my married friends. I don't have the same spending power then if I was married.

In trying to shift others perspective away from their personal myopic world - and to give friends and other the chance to see another perspective. For this perspective I ask other to imagine your life without your significant other. What would you have to do to live? What would your life realistically be if you lived alone? What would your life be without that support? that intimacy? the companionship?