Settling

People I know have observed and remarked that one distinctive fact of my life is my inability, through choice or circumstance, to settle down.

I used to have some fairly predictable responses to this observation; denial was one, defensiveness and shame was another and a third was a feeling of having been deprived by fate.

After many years, I have reached a point in life where the things I want are mostly manifested in my day to day reality. I have work I love, I have my freedom. And now that these things seem finally to be within my grasp, I feel ready and able to "settle down."

However, I should probably point out that my version of settling down doesn't read much like anyone else's.

It doesn't even resemble my own idea of where I was headed when I started out on this life. When I started, I thought I wanted to live in New York City, marry an artist before the age of 30, and be supported by him. At least, I think that's what I had in mind,

My family made it pretty clear to me that my only means of support would be through marriage and so I made finding the man a priority for a long time.

When I went to University, I wanted not to want to be married and so I pushed that aside. It never really went away and a really destructive relationship with a man who needed me on every level when I did not need him ensued.

Then there was the Big Impossible Love.

All the while I kept on quietly working away, much more slowly than I would have if I had understood what I was doing but working anyway.

Now, really and truly on my own and coming into my own with professional respect and the promise of the freedom to come and go as I choose internationally attendant to that respect, (and accomplishment) I wake up in my tiny apartment, look out over the blue sky and the rooftops of my urban neighborhood and I feel a deep sense of calm.

I'm not planning to stay here. The truth is, I think it likely that I will, from now on, always divide my life between at least two cities and, if things go one possible way, maybe between three. There will be a partner, as close as I am likely to get to a husband, in one of them. In the others I will be solitary but not unhappy. There will be travel. Work will command a big place in my heart.

I never knew it when I started and I felt as though there was something wrong with me because I couldn't seem to fix my life but I realize now, for me, this is settling down.

I am making a clear space where I can be fully myself. I am making room to write in my daily life. I'm loving more carefully but more fully. I didn't have the lovely ceremony or the three beautiful children or the house that filled with cherished memories and family treasures over years but I could not have understood those things without the life I've led so far behind me. If they never happen now (and really, chances are they never will - the math just doesn't bear that scenario out anymore) then it's still good. My life is still better than it would have been if I had settled in my body before I settled in my heart and in my spirit.

So I'm settling down. And that's a good thing. It probably doesn't look much like settling would to most people but it is settling to me and for the time being - that's very fine.