Digging In

I keep thinking that the odd feeling will pass, that some day I'll feel normal again, but it hasn't happened yet.

I've been cleaning all day and not really thinking too terribly hard about anything. It's nice to get a break sometimes (my brain doesn't usually willingly shut down until my body is too tired to support it -- not to say I'm always having worthwhile, world-changing thoughts so much as there's always something to think about), but inevitably things catch up and I find myself overwhelmed.

This evening, I stepped out onto my (recently redone) front porch and I was suddenly struck by the oddity of where I am.

Wausau's a different place. I grew up in the Midwest, and by definition most of the Midwest is ... familiar. There's not a whole lot of variation from place to place. Perhaps Wausau isn't much different, but it doesn't always feel that way.

I think I can understand better now than ever before what it was like for someone to move to Lennox from "out of town." I was a transplant myself, but not from very far away. Most of my life stayed very much the same. For those coming from outside, though, Lennox would have seemed like alien territory.

Here, I am the outsider. I showed up alone, my nearest friend three hours away. I don't know the area geography. I don't know the families that are In Charge. I don't have the same attitude or sense of humor as those who have spent their whole lives here. And dangnabbit, I can't seem to catch on to things that are purely Wisconsin.

But I realized, as I stood there looking at my freshly mowed yard, thinking about the work that I still had to get done and the fact that Saturday and May were very nearly over, that I have started carving out a life, my own life, here.

It's a good life, too. I have a great job, an awesome place to live, and some interesting and fun people with whom to hang out. And I must say, I'm getting pretty good at this self-sufficiency thing.

In college, the rules were different. There were always people, always other opinions and hands to jump in when necessary. Now I have people I can ask if I need anything -- but since they're not right there, I'd much rather try to figure it out myself first. Things I've done this weekend -- fixing my bike, winning a battle with the *&^%ing lawn mower -- and things I've done over the last year, most of which would not have occurred to me before. I have gotten particularly good at keeping myself occupied in the in-between hours, filling them with books, parks, cafes, and fun new routes around this neighborhood. I suspect that I am still a mystery to some, particularly the couple next door that always give me odd looks when I go walking alone, but for the most part the places I frequent have accepted me, whether or not they "get" me.

What I realized most, though, is that I can understand the eternal bachelors (and bachelorettes) out there. The thing is ... Well, the thing is that I have a full life, packed to the brim, and I can't imagine fitting someone else into it right now. Not to say I couldn't -- I've thought that before but given the opportunity, poof, there was space -- but I can't picture it. It's not that I'm lazy or stuck in my ways, but it is that I have found things that make me happy and I'm quite content to keep them in my life. Just as married couples eventually can't imagine their lives without each other, single people reach a point where they can't imagine their lives with someone else.

[This post might be making my mother very uncomfortable. Sorry, Mom.]

That's the way we humans operate, isn't it? We find what we like and we surround ourselves with it. Things, places, people ... My apartment is filled with books, maps, and wine bottles. Whenever it's clean enough, I have people over for dinner. Why? Because I like reading, traveling, wine, and cooking for friends. These things are what make me happy, so I do my best to keep them in my life.

When I am doing this well, my life is full and busy. When I am not ... Well, that's when I start wishing for something more to fill the gaps.

I am not just single. I am gap-free. That makes me happy.