The Examined Life

It's an interesting thing being single and living alone. I've been at it for a few years now. Just tonight as I was compulsively tidying up the kitchen and marveling at the way I placed my pear for morning (just to the left of my Hokusai poster- I like asymmetry) I started to wonder if it is good for humans to live alone.

I'm not sure I could live with a flatmate anymore, I'm selfish about my privacy(which reminds me of my favourite Tom Waits song-Better Off Without A Wife) and in Toronto it costs probably about the same as what I'm paying, or more to live in a swish place with a flatmate. (And I use the term flatmate because it's more appropriate- we share a flat/apartment/rooms, not a room) I could conceivably and would be probably pretty happy to live with someone again. heh- but I might need to learn how not to be the one date wonder first.

But living alone, it's a delicious ode to solitude. Everything has a place and everything in its place. Now that I'm spending most of my waking life in the apartment, it's becoming highly organized. I scoffed at my brother when he told me he vacuums every night, but am I that far behind? Tonight after placing my pear- just so- I also took out a coffee mug and placed it riiiight where it needed to be for first thing in the morning.

I know in myself I have a tendency towards a bit of compulsiveness, is living alone an environment where this can thrive? Will I become more and more set in my ways and more and more neurotic the longer I co-habitate with just me?

When you live alone, a sense of order rings out over everything you do- to others it can look like total chaos, but it's a well orchestrated dance of one.

But if you live with others, or even a pet there are aspects of your universe that you cannot control. There is a modicum of spontaneity enforced upon you. And this of course lends itself to being flexible and adaptable in the face of change and circumstance.

It's not easy being alone, you have a lot of time on your hands. Time with which to think, and think over and think over again. It's a magnifying glass on your life. The petri dish that is your apartment is under the microscope.  And sometimes I feel that if I make my apartment perfect enough, then the rest of my life will be perfect too. Except there are outside circumstances outside of my apartment, things beyond my control which contribute to the non-perfectness of life.

Sometimes I wish little gnomes would come in and a)make shoes in the night (I mean come on, shoes! in the night? I need shoe gnomes-we allll do.) and b) move that pear to under the middle of the poster, just so I'll have to deal with a bit of a unexpected circumstance and keep me flexible.