TOW: A Single Adult

You know, being a single person in a big city is very different than anywhere else.  More often than not, your life turns into the local cable network version of Sex and the City.  You should have cute friends that are interesting and yet shallow at the same time, and yet at the end of the episode, things never quite work out the way you planned. 

You have the option to be any kind of person as an adult, but I think most of us end up falling into one of two or three categories.  Somewhat balanced, barfly, or recluse.  It seems to me that you either have nothing better to do than make your life one giant party (barfly) or you can't be bothered with anyone your age because they annoy you too much (recluse) or you vacillitate between the two options depending on how you're feeling (which is, I think, somewhat normal).

Being a single adult is an interesting experience.  In your 20s, it's somewhat exciting.  You never know what's around the corner.  As someone almost 30, it's a little different.  You start to think about the rest of your life, and what it might look like.  You wonder if you will have all your hair, or if parts of your body will sag.  And you wonder, if you are the kind looking for a life partner, whether the same person you dreamed would find you attractive in your 20s will find you attractive in your 30s...or 40s.....50s?  Will you be successful in your career, or will you live in your parents basement for the rest of your life?

Single adults have to constantly be doing 'something' because everyone else is so caught up with making family units (or being in the process of destroying them).  I think that's why I tend to err on the side of a life that's a giant party than one that's reclusive.  I did that for a year and a half here, and I was miserable....but once I let go of some of my inhibitions, life was something really special.  Because it made everything old new again, and everything new, better.  I might not have liked all the results from my choices in life, but I certainly liked the experience, and what I learned from it.  Even bad things, very bad things, have become something worthwhile.  Because, as a single adult, the more bad things you get out of the way early, the easier 30s and 40s will be as you surmount them.

There is no easy way to be an adult, period.  And I don't think married people, or people with children have it easier.  However, love is something that you can never take for granted, and being a single adult, you have to know where to look for love, and where to find it.  Most importantly, you need to know the difference between love and wanting attention, and knowing what sates your needs, and what only exacerbates your neediness.

Because this single adult would like to live a rich life, and not a poor one.  And while financial poverty is just fine for me (I make bag ladies look good!) emotional and spiritual poverty/depravity is not. 

The only person who cares for a single adult is themselves, and, by extension, their other single friends, and sometimes their families, when/if their families aren't too busy.  But thankfully, most of us, by time we're 30, learn how to love ourselves...because without it, a single adult can't hope to be more than a shadow self that belongs simply in one of three labels: barfly, recluse....or somewhat normal.