we could drive around all night / we wouldn't have to go too far

The single life is good to me, and it's so strangely liberating to be solely responsible for everything, to paint all night, to come home and not worry about waking anyone up. It's so quiet where I'm at that I feel like I live in the country even though I'm in what some of my relatives call "the ghetto," though it's a mix of insanely affluent yuppies, mental cases who live on the street, seemingly infinite ethnic groups and everyone in between.

While me and a good friend are planning on living together this spring, I like knowing that I can handle this and that I enjoy it because one can't live with housemates forever and I don't count on having a life partner someday.

So much of our cultural identity gets tied up in the idea of getting married or finding your soulmate and/or buying a house and/or having a lucrative career and honestly all that doesn't mean much to me. I don't know if it ever did, because I would have planned my life out differently back then.

I couldn't afford to buy a home even though they're about the price of a new Kia in my city, and I'm deeply satisfied with my work even though I know I'll never make a whole lot of money, and the life partner thing is something that either happens or it doesn't.

Now that I know that I am not afraid to come home to an empty place, that I don't feel powerless or completely vulnerable, that doesn't bother me, and most of the time, I like being able to be by myself. I'm content with where I'm at especially not having to work around someone else and everything that it brings.



Of course I say this and end up going out on something very much like a date that involved coffee and stargazing and talking til early in the morning. I'm not sure what all that means but I'll just see where it goes, see what I get to know. And in the meantime, I'm surrounded by a beautiful community with some wonderful neighbors and friends who invite me over for pizza and sitting outside next to the fire pit, or to watch football and learn how to throw knives and ninja stars at the pumpkins we carved a few weeks ago. I'm meeting up with my eastsiders tonight for dinner and more hanging out.

When God said that He gave life, and life abundantly, it seems to have less to do with material gain and more with the beauty that comes from unity and a sense of wonder at this beautiful world and a reason for living. At this point, despite a lot of hard things, there is so much beauty that I just can't even totally understand it.