Borderline Successful: At Least I’ll Have My Bees

The Cottage

I used to love the idea of settling down with someone. Now I just want to settle. Not for someone. Into a life that belongs to me.

I want a cottage with wide-plank wood floors and an office in a turret where I can scribble in my journal. I want a lavender farm and bees, jars of lavender honey for the neighbors on holidays. I want to walk into town, buy that week’s loaf of bread, and chat with the shop workers. I want to marvel at how big the florist’s grandchildren have gotten, and smile when the kids at the local school race past the playground fence.

I want to read the backs of old books with worn soft covers in the tiny free library down the lane. I want to collect weird little teapots and vases from estate sales, take up painting for a summer, and paint only rabbits. I want to be in love with myself and live deliciously. Delicately. Be gentle with myself for once.

I want tea in the morning and the sunny spot in my room. And I understand there won’t be anyone in the kitchen stirring their own tea, or stopping by the shop for butter because I reminded them that morning. No hands will curl around my waist as I arrange flowers in the entryway. I won’t laugh so hard I fall off the couch and have someone snort and pull me up so we can laugh even harder together.

A Life, Even Still

I am trying to stop treating a life built for one as the waiting room for a life built for two. I can’t tiptoe around the shadow of the partner I don’t or won’t have. I can’t keep the second closet empty in case a lover decides to stay.

I wonder whether I’ll miss the chance to have children, both in timing and in regret. Will I be sad when I’m old and have no grandkids to teach magical little things to? Will it bother me that I didn’t pick out anyone’s first board books and stuffed animals, or pass down the same treasures from my own life? Or will I refocus on pets, hobbies, and goals I spend more time drafting and refining than actually following through on?

Some days I worry I’ll become someone people know only in passing, invited in the vague way people invite you when they are being kind, not because they need you there.

That’s still a life.

I have to be okay with being just okay. I have to trust that if I pass in my sleep, someone kind will find me. Maybe the mailman will notice my mail piling up and send the constable to check. The town will name a bench after me and remember me as a sweet, lonely old lady who never bought more than two apples or two salmon steaks, afraid they’d go bad before I got around to them.

I have to be okay with that.

It’s a good enough life to dream of, and build toward. I can warm my own hands with a mug and rub my own feet with Tiger Balm. I can bake a few batches of terrible cookies before I get it right, then celebrate by lying in the garden and talking to the clouds.

That life doesn’t have to feel empty. Solitude isn’t the same as loneliness, and if I ever am lonely, at least I’ll have my bees.

With care,

Atila

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