Alone Ranger

This thought is not original, but I think it bears repeating, nonetheless.

Ultimately, each of us is alone.

This may seem like a maudlin statement; an indication, perhaps, that this particular cork is bobbing on an especially cold and empty ocean at present. Not so, on both counts.

The recognition of this autonomy can be a moment for celebration, a liberation. In accepting that you are a discreet unit you not only sever the bonds that bring comfort, support and safety, but also those responsible for your misery, your dependence. Your situation is your doing! And the wonderful thing about that reality is that your behaviour and choices are the only ones you can have any hope of changing; the one person in your life with any real influence is entirely within your control.

Do you grind your teeth over a particular relationship in your life? You are free to make the conscious choice to break the patterns within it -- change your own behaviour, your pat responses, or decide to disengage from the situation. You can, you know. Social life dissatisfying? Spending too much time with people who drain your spirit and suck you dry? Well, stop bitching, get off your corpulent posterior and do something about it. Try something new, take a risk -- hell, you might even enjoy it! And if you don't it's hardly a disaster. Just try something else instead. Just do something. Anything. Move forward. Take some responsibility for yourself, because snivelling about how unfair life is or what a bad hand you've been dealt or how much better everyone else has it is not going to do anything other than bore the people around you witless.

Exciting, isn't it? I think so.

I write this a little over a week away from catapaulting myself back around the globe to the UK -- alone. When I made this decision recently I was immediately gripped with a nauseous terror because, obviously, I'll never meet anyone and I'll never find a good job there and I'll end up living in a horrid city and I'll be desperately lonely and I'll be poor and Britain's so expensive and... and... and... and........absolute dribble, of course. Where I am is a result of my careful planning and hard work. Completely my own doing. I specifically chose to put myself in this situation, and I'm beginning to remember why: to feel the thrill of panic crushing my chest and -- drawing a deep, bracing breath -- love it.

Care to join me?