Living Alone vs. Being Alone

Living alone does not mean being alone. When I moved here, I knew I would be accepting assistance from friends. I stayed at a friend's house and borrowed different friends' vehicles to see apartments and bikes. Friends helped me move, and friends offered companionship.

After I had moved, when there was a gunman on my patio, my friends hopped in their car and arrived in conjunction with the police. Once the police allowed people into my complex, my friends came and packed my bag. They brought me to their house, where I am staying now, and helped me calm down. They returned to the complex, picked up my motorcycle, and brought me back to next day to work out a solution with the complex to the problems I had with the apartment where in one week there had been repeated mechanical issues, noise issues, and safety problems. The apartment complex agreed to allow me to transfer to another complex on March 31, and they will be helping me move again in a few days.

Obviously, I moved out here to live alone for one year, but I am not alone. I am living in a friend's house right now as the apartment issue continues to be sorted out. The problem is that I continue to try to live as though I was living alone. I had a plan to "return to self-sufficiency." I wanted to know I had a network of friends I could rely upon if necessary, but I did not plan to ask for assistance. Doing so upset me.

I was called on my stupidity Thursday night. I hurt my back doing something stupid on Thursday afternoon. There was a large group of people at the house, but I continued to do all manners of things that could have been done by anybody (sweeping the floor, picking things up, etc.) even though it hurt. As the evening wore on, the pain increased instead even though I had taken medication because I wasn't resting my back.

Two people realized I was in pain and offered to help. When I insisted it was unnecessary because I came out here to live alone and can't rely on someone else to take care of me, they gave me quite a tongue thrashing. They pointed out that I am in Arizona to live alone, but I was not alone at that moment and could ask for assistance when there were friends around even if I felt that I had to be stupid when I was home alone. These were people I had not met until the first week of March.

I have been thinking about that a lot since then. After all, I am a woman who remembers. Did I ever go at it completely alone? I have always had a group of friends that I have relied on. It has always been important to me to build a network of people around me that I could look to when I needed them.

Friends and family are important to me. I grew up in a small town with friends and family who were always called when needed. If something broke or was too heavy to move, you called someone to assist you. So when I moved out to live on my own, I continued doing that. When I moved out of my small town several years later, I continued that tradition with my friends even when my my blood-ties were no longer in the area. I felt that my close friends were my family.

I do love my friends. I might live alone, but I will never be alone.