mate. I disagree. Life is what you make it. Easy or hard: You get
back what you put in. But let's suppose for a moment that life is
harder for me because I am mate-less. Take this assumption and walk
with me for a moment. Taking the tough road is not for the faint at
heart. When I have a problem with my car or apartment, I usually have
to take off work to get it fixed. That cuts into my vacation time
and/or sick leave time. When I buy groceries I have to lug all the
heavy groceries upstairs myself. No help. Moving is a chore as well
and I'm not even going to go there. When I come home, I come home
alone; I cook alone. There is no one there to tell me I've done a
great job on my cooking (though its wonderful I might add). When the
tub gets dirty or the dishes need to be washing, I do it because it
has to be done. I eat alone, sometimes with the TV, sometimes at the
table, sometimes over the stove, sometimes while chatting about my day
on the phone. I go to sleep alone. One half of my bed has not been
touched. It stays perpetually made with tons of pillows and that's
oddly how I like it. I wake up alone. No smells of coffee waiting
on me, though I guess I could program my coffee maker to have that
Starbucks scent fill my apartment at 6:10a.m. When I need to advocate
for something, I use my own voice, not the voice of someone around me.
There's rarely anyone else around for me to bounce ideas off of,
unless I call my mom or a friend. I am comfortable with my own voice.
Regardless, I stand or fall with my own convictions and paradigms.
There is one voice, and that's mine.
I hear endless stories about people's kids, dogs, and significant
others and I must admit sometimes the dog takes precedence over the
latter. And I listen intently while I think about my life. I don't
have to go home and take care of a husband or help kids with homework.
I don't have to let the dog out at 5p.m. I don't have a story about
how great my kid is at math or how I chewed a teacher out at
parent/teacher conferences. I spent my hard earned money on a red
Swiss Love watch for Valentines and stayed in bed most of last week
sick. Had it not been for my mother who took off on Friday to help
take care of me, my plants, and my apartment I would have been alone,
nursing myself back to health. So I guess looking at my life under
the lens of the toughness without a mate, its hard. But under that
same guise my life is also uncomplicated. I don't have drama in my
home, only peace. I buy food and clothes for one, and I eat and wear
exactly what I like without question. Life toughens me, and my steely
resolve comes from spending now virtually a handful of years living on
my own. If something goes down I know what to do, I know where to go
and I have no trouble blazing a trail on my own. I have the freedom
to just be in whatever way I want to be and that's a blessing. My
steely resolve comes from rolling with a lot of punches and taking a
few punches here and there. So taking the proclaimed "tough" road is
not for the faint at heart. But actually, it's not so tough. No one
ever gets anywhere taking the easy road. So to my professor and
countless others who nodded their heads that life is easier with a
mate: Life is what you make it. I don't look at the other side and
say the grass is greener and flowing with milk and honey. I look at
the other side and say "It's quite sunny and clear over here" as I
drink my drama-free emancipated martini – shaken not stirred with
three olives. Checkmate.
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