By Carl Brown
At one time or another, most of us have lived alone while hunting The Soulmate (your next one ...) with whom we will mind-meld lives and combine fortunes.
Good for you.
Not good for me.
As preface, I should explain that I nickname my apartments (names like Sky Dojo, Pink Floyd, Green Floyd, Shangri-La, The Office, The Tree House, Happy Hippie House, etc.) I move around a lot.
I call my current undisclosed location, somewhere in The Original Highlands, THE FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, named after Superman’s icy retreat from the world.
Heretofore, every decade, I married – whether I liked it or not. Three fallen sparrows thus far, and there will not be a Mrs. Brown, IV.
I have chosen to live alone for the rest of my days, and here’s why ...
I’ve made my peace with being single and, rather than be lonely, find myself basking in freedom. It’s a hard thing, being free, but it’s much easier on the spirit, mind and body than being enslaved by a golden finger cuff known as a wedding band.
Paternal urges erupted eight years ago and I engaged myself to another, a woman of child-bearing years – 30 – in order to breed ... I mean, in order to raise a family – in others words, breed.
Now, however, as a Metrosexual (I love that word), I choose to leave the breeding to the breeders. Burdened with the genetic disorder of manic-depression, how could I risk bringing a child into this world who has a 20 percent chance of death by their own hand and an assured life that fluctuates between dangerous manic behavior and the life-numbing, fetal position, depression?
Call it eugenics by choice.
I have seven godchildren.
Works for me.
But, I have neither wife nor lover and sleep alone on a wafer-thin futon mattress that hugs the floor. There is no one to hold all night or give the first kiss of dawn.
I am not alone in my aloneness. Twenty five percent of Americans are single dwellers – almost all of whom are looking for the next best thing. Good luck and happy hunting.
As a loner, I am the captain of my ship, the master of my fate.
Alone, I sleep and eat when fancied. I go out day or night without need of explanation, excuse or permission. Extinguished is the necessity to communicate, to compromise, to endure inevitable emotional abuse – and by all means to avoid hurting the feelings of another, a path fraught with little white lies.
AND I get control of the remote.
But hey, tomorrow I might meet that special girl with green hair while shopping for vegetables at ValuMarket. If so, a future column may extol the extraordinary advantages of having someone in life with whom to grow old. When it comes to Highlands Lovers, one never really knows. One merely hopes.
Anyway, I’m Carl Brown, Louisville’s Doctor of Love, and I ask but this: Love one another, love yourself and love the Highlands.
All we need is love.
Carl
Carl Brown lives at an undisclosed location in the Original Highlands. E-mail him at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
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