Living alone
The challenges and benefits of not having a partner at home.
On Tuesday, I fell at home.
I had just got out of the shower and was wrapped in a towel when I walked into the living room. My right foot gave away as I stepped on the floor and then my whole naked, pale, wet self when flying. I landed on my right side and tried to break the fall with my right hand.
As I got up, I was worried most about my hand and wrist because, well, I’m a writer and reporter and need my hands!
But I seemed fine, dried myself off, and tip-toed around the spot where I fell.
A few moments later, I got a text from my neighbour in the downstairs flat.
“You ok?” she wrote.
Yes, I told her, detailing what happened in a short text back to her.
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote this piece about reaching a new middle-age milestone of getting into birdwatching. Now I am wondering if I have hit a new, unpleasant and potentially dangerous middle-age milestone of taking random falls.
A friend sent a message to check in on me the next day. I somehow managed to escape injury or even bruises. I joked I must have some Wolverine-like regenerative healing factor (that’s all I know about that X-Men superhero*).
“Someone was looking out for you, my friend,” she wrote.
“Or I am really bouncy,” I responded.
“Or that,” she replied.
It’s nice to have people to check in on you, for sure, but what if I had hit my head on the wall or floor and knocked myself out? What if I broke something? After the fall, I pictured myself like Miranda on that episode of Sex and the City where she fell after getting out of the shower. Her friend Carrie sent along her boyfriend, Aiden, to the rescue.
Now, I really don’t live alone. My 21-year-old daughter lives with me, but she often stays at her boyfriend’s place. She’d love to move out, of course, but the housing crisis has made rent unaffordable for young people and many other people. That is another story.
But I have lived alone before and don’t really think about the challenges of that, although they are there.
First, there are the financial challenges of covering the bills all on your own. That was particularly worrying when I was laid off from my job in 2017. While I was glad to get severance and employment insurance, that doesn’t last. Sometimes I think it would be nice to have someone to share the bill payments.
Then there are the repairs that need to be done. I am not a handyperson, although I’m smart enough to figure some small stuff out. I also own a toolkit and know how to use most of the tools in it. But again, a handyperson would be nice.
And then there are the safety issues of living alone, especially for women. I don’t think about this one much, but I did one night in September 2022 when a man was knocking on my door at 9:30 p.m. He later climbed over the fence, went up the backstairs, and tried to get in the door.
My neighbour downstairs, the one who texted me when I fell this week, told me to call the police. So, I reluctantly did. It turns out the man was intoxicated and had the wrong house.
While the incident rattled me for a day or two, I eventually thought, “fuck this” and was pretty determined to not be paranoid in my own place. I do know I am safe 99.99% of the time.
It’s nice to have a neighbour to check in on you when she hears the thud of your fall. I check in on her too, including one time when I heard a huge bang, which turned out to be her just doing some fixes in the kitchen.
We should get keys for each other’s places.
In March 2023 at my day job at the Halifax Examiner, I wrote this piece about older single women who create co-housing for themselves, like the Golden Girls, which was more of a shared housing arrangement. I got so many emails from women who had longed to do the same. One wrote that she and her girlfriends planned on dumping their male partners to live together Golden Girl style with cheesecake and humour. I will seriously consider this option when my daughter is on her own.
But I don’t mind living alone or at least without my daughter around all the time.
On Monday, the day before that fall, I was standing in my kitchen wearing nothing but a tank top and my underpants and eating a grilled cheese sandwich. I was checking out this week’s forecast to plan for day trips. Yes, some partners wouldn’t be crazy about watching me partly clothed in the kitchen and not eating at the table. But that doesn’t matter because I was alone and can do whatever I want! This is freedom, my friends.
I have a couple of days off and have day trips planned for each day. I also have company coming along for each trip.
We’re heading out in a few hours to visit a lavender farm that is in full bloom. I hope I can remain upright for the day.
As always, thanks for reading,
Suzanne
Still standing
*I updated this story to correct the line in which I said Wolverine is an Avengers superhero. My daughter, who reads my blog, told me Wolverine is a X-Men superhero. She said other than that, this post “is great.”