Three Dog Night had a hit song in 1969 (ironically, the year I met Randy) that claimed, “one is the loneliest number that you’ll ever do.” You’d think that the song was about a relationship break-up or, as one writer put it, “a melancholy meditation on loneliness”. Nope. Harry Nilsson wrote the song after being inspired by the busy signal after making a phone call. Still, it’s an iconic song used to set the mood for a character’s state of mind in lots and lots of TV shows and movie tracks. It’s not surprising it popped into my head when I thought about going home to an empty house for the first time today.
Until Randy died (6 weeks ago today), I never gave much thought to being alone. I’ve never been just one before. I went from being one of many in a family with mom, dad and five siblings, to being one of a couple married to Randy for 50 years.
I wrote a post called Alone about a month ago. That post chronicled the macro aspects of aloneness as I imagined them at the time. I wasn’t thinking then about the micro things, the day-to-day situations I encountered in the last 3 travel days and those that will hit me hard as I begin to live alone today in a house created and meant for a couple.
It’s all so foreign. When you’re just one, there’s no need to take into consideration what someone else wants or needs. I get to choose what and when, or even if, to eat. Randy was a creature of habit and food was a pleasure for him. Sharing meals is connection and fellowship. According to The Family Dinner Project, families who eat together have less stress, enjoy better mental health and behavior, are less likely to have substance abuse problems, and generally produce children with more academic success. Additionally, eating together as a family usually means better nutrition.
I can vouch for that better nutrition thing. If Randy was with me on the first leg of my road trip home, I certainly wouldn’t have munched peanut M&Ms, peanut butter filled pretzels, and cherry flavored juju coins all the way from Wisconsin to Indiana. Thank you, Myndi and Brian, for insisting I take leftover calzone and apple slices with me when I left your home Sunday morning. I ate that real food for dinner in my hotel room. It was a tiny bit of nutrition I wouldn’t have sought for me, myself & I. I’m going to have to learn how to eat alone most of the time and be healthy and smart about it.
A couple of days ago, on Sunday night, I finally felt like I am just one. I spent the night in a hotel, alone, in Indiana. No one is waiting for me at my destination. There’s no partner expecting me to report my safety to them, tell them I love and miss them. I’m grateful for the many people who care about my well-being, of course. Providing them with updates has kept me from feeling too alone on the journey back to Florida.
Traveling by myself in a car for 1,500 miles is a new “alone experience” too. Randy and I loved road trips. He rarely asked me to drive but I always navigated. We were a great team. On this trip, I had to learn to be both the driver AND the navigator. I’m grateful to my sister, Lisa, who, a couple of days before Lynn and I left for Missouri several weeks ago, told me about Android Auto. Even though I’m kind of a techie, I’d never heard of Android Auto. It turned out to be the solution to that “driving long distances alone” problem.
It’s strange not to ask, out loud, whether there’s a need for a rest stop every time I passed a sign announcing one coming up. Or to coordinate with someone else getting fuel with potty stops or the desire for food and drink. Randy didn’t like to be in the car for more than 6 or 7 hours a day. I don’t mind going longer than that. When your only goal is to get from one place to another, I don’t see a need to be in a hotel longer than it takes to just fall asleep, get up, and start driving again in the morning. For Randy, every town we stopped in was an adventure. He loved to explore mom and pop restaurants. And he always planned several hours a day to maintain Our High Places, no matter where we were.
I’ve never been lonely. Even when Randy was living in Denver for nearly a year while attending Air Force training in the 90s and I stayed behind in our home in Folsom, California, I didn’t feel alone. He wasn’t physically present for months, but we talked nearly every day and I knew he was coming home in a relatively short period of time. It was a temporary situation.
He’s gone for good now, though, and I’m beginning to feel that. I don’t like it one little bit. I’m not lonely yet but I know I will be. I wish I could tell him something 10 times a day. Something will trigger a memory of him another 10 times a day. And I miss his good-night kiss every single day.
A few days ago, the first thing on my mind when I woke up was: what the hell am I going to do if I ever find a snake in my house. That’s NEVER happened in 50 years, but hey, it could. And there’s no Randy to scream for to come and solve that horrifying problem.
I was talking to a friend about being alone and not having to consider how any of my actions or decisions would affect another person. My friend commented that it might be easy to become selfish. I don’t think that will happen. To be selfish, I think you have to be aware of the needs of someone else and choose to disregard them.
It seems to me being alone won’t foment selfishness…there simply aren’t any other needs to consider. I do think the danger might be that I’ll be desensitized to recognizing other’s considerations when they’re not in my immediate vicinity every single day. I’ll work hard to try not to let that happen.
I goggled “benefits of being alone in life.” AI returned a list of 16 advantages, calling them “massive.” Ha! I thought AI doesn’t have emotion or judgement capabilities. How would ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE know that living along has massive advantages? Someday, when I figure out how to debate AI (I hear you can do that) I’ll see if I, who will have experience actually living alone, can argue both sides of that issue.
One of the benefits listed is freedom. I can see that. But it’s a stupid kind of freedom that makes choices to binge on candy and junk food across three states as described above. I’ll really miss having to answer to Randy about doing foolish stuff like that.
My new normal, on a micro level, alone, starts today as I return home to a truly empty house for the first time, ever. It may be the hardest thing I’ll ever have to do.
But I will do it. I will try to remember always that living alone can be an adventure. I know so many of you will come running with whatever I might need while I’m discovering how to live alone. Thank you!
And I will do my best to honor Randy as I learn to live, alone, without him.
P.S. Please pray for my brother, Denny. He had a serious medical emergency last weekend and is in the ICU in Green Bay. He seems to be ok now, but they need to figure out what happened and how to prevent it again. If I’d lost Denny now, it might be a knock-out punch for me.
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