Walking Forward, Looking Back
Page 16
I have a freedom in my home, whilst some friends feel they are losing the freedom in theirs, with husbands retiring and seeming to be about the place most of the time, wanting food in the middle of the day.
“I married him for better or worse but not for lunch,” a friend said recently when she’d escaped to mine for coffee. She went on to explain that her friends were more reluctant to call in when they have free time now because of husband being around. It feels, as friends talk, that their independence somehow seems to be curtailed when husband retires. Their ‘space’ in the home, to use at will when they leave work – maybe having a lazy day, reading a book or listening to the afternoon play on the radio – seems to disappear. Juggling that loss alongside retirement, while ‘gaining’ a full-time husband, who himself is experiencing the loss of job and often status, can, it seems, prove difficult for some.
After a bad marriage, solitude can be a welcome gift. Yet it seems that many women simply have to find another partner, cannot be alone at all and often rush headlong into any relationship to save being alone; appearing to feel only half a person without a partner. For the rest of us, the damage left after divorce takes time to repair; injury is deep and healing is slow. This in itself can cause problems in other relationships that we try to develop. If you’ve been continually disapproved of, it’s easy to misinterpret an ordinary question from someone new, to take it as criticism and to react defensively to a simple enquiry. Question: “Why have you ordered that off the menu?” Defensive Answer: “What’s wrong with that as a choice?!”
Having been constantly made to feel that I didn’t sufficiently financially contribute to the household budget, I became ridiculously insistent about paying my way in new liaisons. I had known a really kind, considerate man for some six months or so when he asked if I would go on holiday with him. I answered saying that I would love to as long as I paid my own way. His reply was that he had hoped for more than a week in a caravan in Wales; he wanted to take me somewhere warm and exotic. At least he understood the limits of my bank balance. But I had to pay my way. It felt important, even though it probably wasn’t in the overall scheme of things.
Wounds may appear healed, but we take scars into those new relationships; healed wounds, yes, but with hidden bruises that remain painful when pressure is applied, so moving away from anything that may possibly rub against the sore surface becomes a pattern of behaviour. It’s a precedent that can seem almost impossible to change and one that certainly exerts undeserved tension in any new association.
In today’s society, many people fear being alone and are afraid of their own company and yet for me, being alone is not being lonely. It is only by being alone that I have really got to know myself. Being alone has given me the opportunity to develop companionship with myself. It has allowed me time to think and to find in myself a true friend. I now believe that taking the time and space to establish this friendship is probably the most important relationship we can ever make. It’s almost certainly essential to make friends with yourself before you’re ready to live with someone else. Any close friendship takes time; making friends with oneself has to be tied up with this freedom to be alone and to think.
This liberty seems to be too terrifying for many to contemplate. It appears that many older women stay trapped in stultifying relationships because to do anything else has become too scary to consider.
It has been a surprise to me to discover the joys of living alone and of treating myself sometimes. It really is great to indulge myself, perhaps by buying a ridiculously extravagant, expensive face cream or ignoring household chores in favour of spending a day at a sheepdog trial; and, best of all, to return from a chilly dog walk and have a bath, right in the middle of the day, using every drop of the hot water, just because I feel like it! I find I’ve learned to nurture myself; to create ceremonies of personal pleasure that feed my inner spirit. Moreover, I’ve realised that the presents I buy myself are wonderful – no disappointments – it’s always exactly what I want! If I buy myself flowers, they are gorgeous; no nasty garage bunch of ragged carnations, but rather a beautiful spray of freesias.
There is also the release from any of those household chores that you really dislike. I revel in the joy of never needing to cook again. To be able to just look in the fridge to see what’s there, to take a plate of grapes and add a few chunks of tasty cheese and to know that’s it: done and dusted, meal prepared. What freedom. No saucepans to wash, no cooker to clean, and much less shopping to do; I love it. Perhaps more expected, but nonetheless pleasing, is the uninterrupted possession of the remote control. (Unless I need to reclaim it from beneath a rucumbent Harriet taking up most of the sofa.)
Obviously there is a downside to living alone… there’s always a downside. As well as the probable financial constraints, when you live on your own there is no-one to hassle you, to remind you, just by being there, that the place is untidy or that the bed is left unmade. There is only you to set the limits, to exert your own controls on how much you eat or drink, or how lazy you allow yourself to become; and then, of course, there’s always the bins to put out.
The truly happy, single person is not someone who is unable to make relationships, but rather someone who possesses the talent to live alone; who can reach out to others, but who doesn’t depend on others to make themselves whole or happy.
But – and it is quite a big but – I think the more time I spend alone, the less likely I am to want to grow an intimate attachment. I now have a lot to lose; not least that ‘thinking space’ that I would need to surrender if I had to consider the demands of a live-in partner. Maybe I’ve just become selfish while living alone.
A dog-person friend has also warned me against trying to get any man you may want in your life to truly like your dog. She reckons it doesn’t really work; that you can push them together as much or as often as you like, and while at times it feels fine, there are other times when it appears they have an emotional distance from your dog that you don’t. She says they sort of try but don’t always understand how much you miss your dog and why you don’t really want to holiday without your four-legged friend. They may see faults that you don’t. Probably, they disapprove of the dog being allowed on the sofa or that you feed him your crusts. (I decided not to ask whether it was the dog or her new man that she fed with her crusts.)
That’s not been a problem I’ve come across as yet, although the facts sound plausible. Even so, somehow the relationships I have found myself in in later years have left me wanting and I have yearned for the ease of aloneness again. The complications and concessions of a live-in partnership seem to require more staying power and compromise than I want to manage anymore.
However; should the need arise, the hotel with the four-poster bed is still there and they still serve that crème brûlée.
* * *
Harriet returns to drop the umpteenth stick at my feet. We begin the walk home. She jumps up with her front paws on the top edge of the water tank in the corner of the field. She dips her head and gulps the rainwater within and then scampers off ahead with a long pink tongue dripping from the side of her mouth as she flings herself down in a dense patch of succulent-looking grass and rolls over and back, before jumping straight up onto all four paws, then dropping suddenly to a crouch before hurtling herself up into my arms with the sheer joy of the moment… Harriet knows how to live life well. I stagger as I struggle to regain my balance, laughing as I hug her close and look back over the view, grasping one more glance to feed my soul; another memory harvested to hold forever. As I weave my way through the lychgate, I quicken my pace to catch up with Harriet.
* * *
I now find I live much of my life in my head; not simply with memories, but with thoughts and feelings. Maybe it’s an inevitable effect of living alone. Even when I’ve been away from my life, it seems always to have been there waiting for me to return. It’s as though, revisiting it, I’ve been able to catch-up and stride alongside it comfortabl
y, rather than constantly dodging paths where I knew difficult terrain might be.
* * *
I realise the light is fading fast; the sun has almost set behind me. Much like my life, it would seem one must wait until the evening to see how glorious the day has been. The sunset has left behind a vivid red sky on the horizon – ‘a shepherd’s delight’ – and, with it, the promise of a great tomorrow.
Harriet turns and scampers playfully back to meet me. I lean down and ruffle the dishevelled fur that comes down over her eyes, silently inviting her to ‘Come along; grow old with me… the best is yet to be’.
* * *
The End
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I want to thank John Martin for his delightful pen and ink sketches. He captures Harriet so well.
I very tentatively submitted my very first draft to Jan Moran Neil who not only offered me valuable feedback but, more importantly, inspired me. Without her belief in my writing ability, I’m not sure this book would have been born.
The understanding of where I found myself at the time of my divorce, sensitively displayed by Elke Dutton in her poem, reflects the close friendship we shared at that time. I will always be grateful for her sincere portrayal of my feelings.
Thanks must go to Di Lord who always believed I had something significant to say and who strives, against so many odds, to keep the art of nursing at the heart of her patient care.
To Kathy Nelson, my friend and fellow author, thank you for being instrumental in re-energising me to push forward with publishing. Your interest in my writing has meant so much.
A big thank you goes to many friends for all their support; many of whom, like me, fear the demise of the caring art of nursing. So many of you gave time to reading excerpts, making suggestions and encouraging me with your enthusiasm for the message I was struggling to convey in the text.
Thank you to all the patients and families I was privileged to serve who allowed me to share very emotive, memorable times with them and who taught me so much.
The love of my children Jon, Ben, Matt and Izzie is a treasured gift; a gift beyond measure, unceasingly given. Thank you is so not enough.
visit the author’s website:
www.dinahlatham.co.uk
THE QUEEN’S NURSING INSTITUTE
The Queen’s Nursing Institute is a registered charity dedicated to improving the nursing care of people in their own homes. They trained district nurses until the 1960s in a model that was copied across the world. Today, the charity carries out a wide range of functions supporting nurses and their patients in the community through educational grants, professional networks, publications, research and events. It works with nurses in an effort to ensure that good quality community nursing is available to everyone where and when they need it. To find out more about the charity’s work and perhaps make a donation, please visit their website at www.qni.org.uk.