“and when nobody wakes you up in the morning, and when nobody waits for you at night, and when you can do whatever you want. what do you call it, freedom or loneliness?”~Charles Bukowski
Many of us have seen this as a meme on social media. My answer is always “both”. And I stand by that.
But the other day I woke up before dawn as I sometimes do and my first thought was “I have nobody”. So I will put the first possibility suggested first. Loneliness.
Later that day I read a story written by a cabbie about picking up an old woman and taking her to hospice. She is utterly alone.
And I thought: this could be me in 20 or 25 years.
I have no children. How that came to be is not important. The fact of it is.
And even if I had children they might be gone, by death or estrangement.
My family of origin has always been fractured. I have recently reunited with two sisters, long estranged. But they live far from me and are not in the best of health.
I have been married 3 times but none worked out. The first husband is the only one still living and we have not spoken in decades. The other two are long dead.
I have a long time long distance quasi boyfriend, but that is not the kind of partner I am thinking of here.
And I have friends. Mostly living 1200 miles away. There are people in my own community I like very much. But they are not close in the way I am thinking of.
They will give me a ride to town or make sure I have drinking water and food. So I am not without human contact.
Just not the kind of intimacy that counts when old age descends and death draws nearer.
But what of the other variable, freedom?
There is a bit of buzz right now for Betty Reid Soskin, the 103 year old woman who became a park ranger at 85 and retired at 100.
Leaving aside her extreme active lifestyle and her longevity, she is a poster child for the freedom side of the equation. And in thinking of her I shed some light on my own conundrum.
When I was 59 I moved to Taos, where I knew nobody. I bought a local print magazine and ran it for 5 years, until the pandemic forced me to stop.
I didn’t have to ask the permission of anyone to do this. I did not have to consider anyone else’s input.
And when it is time for me to go back to sea level, no doubt to another location where I know no one, I will be able to do so without putting the matter before a committee.
I alone will decide where to go, and when.
One of the things Ms. Soskin touches on is the effect of that level of freedom on productivity and accomplishment.
I have found the same correlation. At 67 I am not young. Health is the key to old age lived well, and mine is not yet known for sure, though it is relatively good so far.
I will always have friends if not a partner or family. When I move to the next place I’ll will meet people and be part of the new community.
But I don’t have time to make old friends. The deepest ties, the ones that both bind and create belonging, are forged earlier in life.
The family is the primal unit for humans, and the intimate partnership is the cornerstone of the family.
But what hugs can also restrict. It changes what we can do, what we can say, even what we can think.
What if society also needs a certain number of free agents who are able to focus on something larger than themselves precisely because there are no ties of the human variety and no expectations?
I did not ask to be a member of that rare group. But some of us are draftees not volunteers.
And since I can’t fix the loneliness I may as well lean in to the freedom.
Maybe this will change. I could, even at my age, fall in love and live happily ever after. But if I do it will be an accident l, not something I forced.
And in the meantime, I want my 20 or 25 years, even if I am an outlier.
There is still plenty that needs doing. If I need company I can always invite someone to lunch.
Beautiful m. Thank you.
Great article. I think about this too. 54 and married - no kids, just my mom, , no one close by, 2 great friends far away. I feel I may outlive my hubby. I like your comment "lean into the freedom". In the end I think the worse feeling would be to be in nursing home and regret all the beautiful things, travel, etc we missed out on. It's easy to fall into our "safe traps, safe spots".... but we will regret that at the end of our days. You sound adventurous. 😁. Good for you.