On living

Dee once said not able to live alone was a sign of a ‘high maintenance’ person. That phrase stuck. We were discussing about high and low maintenance people and emotional neediness, clinginess, needing someone to be around when you return from work, in other words — not able to live alone meant  high maintenance emotionally, according to wicked Dee.

So I want to tell Dee, hey I’ve managed to live alone these last two months. It’s all right, even if it is crazy sometimes. But a room mate might be nice.

Learning to live with one-self is tougher than learning to live with some one else.

With oneself, one is left to deal with a whole lot of mess all alone, and not all of it is emotional. In the past two months, I’ve left the gas burner on twice  the first time for seven hours and I was not even home that time.

I thought I’d burnt down the house. We had gone to watch the closing ceremony of the CYG and each time the cell rang, I thought it was the office calling to report a fire in K.

One night I came home and went straight to the bathroom and a big flying evil cockroach leapt out at me. Many nights, I’d get nightmares about lions and tigers chasing me through the woods. Living alone means battling insects and animals on your own. IT means if some nut case broke down your front door in the middle of the night, you’d have to handle it yourself.

Then you’ve got to keep the house clean. You’ve got to pay all the bills on your own — and keep track of the bank account, and see how the money disappears regularly—the heart really bleeds.

It’s almost easier to sort out the emotional aspect. One becomes tougher, independent, you answer to no one else. You’re drunk on freedom. After a while, talking to the walls is even fun.

Its tough to live alone, but it can be done. But I’m arguing for living with company. It’s a chance at joy. It can be exasperating, but there has to be delirious, glorious joy sometimes. I’d recommend to get a friend to move in as  neighbour, but that might not be economically practical. More practical is to get a room mate. The trouble only is when the room mate ends up being unbearable. One’s own mess can be ignored for a while, but someone else’s mess is intolerable, they say.

The question for me is — is it better to be depressingly angry and exasperated with a roommate or inconsolably depressed and suicidal with oneself?