It's Three in the Morning and....

Today I looked in the mirror and suddenly I felt like a stranger to the person I saw staring back at me. I wondered who, exactly, I am. And I realised, not for the first time, that I've been extremely "alone" all my life.

I'm not depressed ... just feeling a little bit strange tonight.

When I was part of a couple, even though our relationship was mostly horrible, I used to feel smug when single women complained about their aloneness - embarrassing as that is to admit. I spent my days pretending my life was perfect, that I'd succeeded in that one thing so many others struggle to achieve ... a lasting relationship where each is treated with respect and equality. People used to ask me "what's your secret?" And I would smile and say something lame. I really believed it too. I hid my bruises and pretended I was living a life of bliss. We were a couple who appeared to be happy (at least, to those who didn't look too closely). Anyone who spent any time with us would have seen a different, very frightening side, but for the rest, who saw only our surface, we were a surprising success. An unlikely couple of misfits who had found lasting love in each other. It was all a lie, but who knew? Not even me.

Now, two years (has it really been that long?) after I left him, I'm realising that I was always alone.

I don't want to be part of a couple, I really don't, but I wish I had a shoulder to lean on. I want a man to hug me once in a while, and tell me I'll be fine. The thing that gets me is ... I realise I didn't even have this when I was in a relationship. Yet I was so blind, I convinced myself that I did. I remember times that I confided my fears to x, and when he failed to respond, I literally arranged his arms so that he would understand I needed a hug. The memory of it reminds me of the cruel experiments that were done to infant monkeys in laboratories - where they were given metal mothers to simulate the real thing.

I've been thinking about this whole love/relationship thing for a long time now. My views are, possibly a little bit jaded, I don't know. I guess, since I opened my eyes and realised I was in a sick relationship, I've become a bit cynical about other couples. It's just that I hate the idea of "expecting" someone to show concern for me just because he's my boyfriend and so it's his duty in the relationship to be caring. On the other hand, I'm wondering now, if it wasn't kinda nice to be living a life where I felt I could expect one person, among all the people on this planet, to show concern, for the simple reason that he was my boyfriend and so "of course" he would care about my feelings. It felt safe, somehow, even though as it turns out, I was kidding myself that he really cared. Come to think of it, I can see why I fooled myself all those years - it was for my own peace of mind to believe I was cared for. Now, as a single woman, there is no man who "owes me" his concern. No man to whom I can tell my fears and expect to be comforted. I might very well be comforted, but it's not a given. I'm on my own. Even when I was in that stupid relationship, and had to arrange him into position so that I could convince myself I was being hugged ... at least I had that. And at least I have the right now, to feel anger in the fact that he didn't sincerely comfort me - he was my boyfriend, he had a duty to comfort me. There is no man now, for me to resent for his failure to comfort me, because there is no man who owes me comfort.

It seems I've been searching for love my whole life. I wasn't loved by my parents, (though I think my mother loves me now), I wasn't loved in my relationship that took me from my teens to the age of fourty, and now, at fourty-two ... well here I am. Here I am alone. Looking in the mirror and wondering who I am.