Sleeping Solo: One Woman's Journey into Life after Marriage by Audrey Faye

went, I sat gingerly on the floor in the
middle of about twenty other people in a big, dim hall, all doing various
things—stretching, mostly—that had no pattern I could discern.   Music played in the background, but it
didn’t seem to demand that we do anything with it, although some people in the
room were clearly already catching a ride on the beat.   I waited patiently for someone to show
up and tell us what to do.
    After about ten minutes, I was the only one left sitting on
the floor.   The rest were moving
around, doing their own thing—but it was mostly beginning to look like
dancing, and the music was getting harder to ignore.   So I stood up and began to quietly
shuffle around in the shadows.
    The woman standing by the music system in the corner would
occasionally say things like “follow your hand for a while,” or “play with some
clockwise spirals if you like.”   And
this interesting thing started to happen for me.   As I felt out what my hand wanted to do,
or had fun spinning around in right-hand circles, I started feeling the dance
from the inside.
    The whole awkward thing is a non-issue if it’s the way your
body wants to move.
    I have no idea if I looked like a dancer that night, but I felt like one.   The music got to speak straight to my
body as it moved from gentle flowing rhythms through more demanding, wild
ones.   And oh, the magic of the wild
beats!   Then back
to flowing, and finally to stillness.   (There’s a lot of actual thought and
experience behind these rhythms, as you might guess from the name, but I didn’t
know any of that on my first night.   I just rode the dance wave.)
    So, two things happened.   I fell into wholly unexpected love, and
I had a new tool for hanging out in my body and for opening the gates to some
of what I was feeling that didn’t have an easy outlet.
    Dear world.   Make
room for one more dancer.
    I also found a place to be in community—and to be
alone.   The dance sometimes moves
into partners or trios or squares, and some people choose to remain solo at
those moments.   The other night was
the first time I tried that—there had been more partner dance than usual
and my body was resisting.   So I
flowed on my own, following a meandering stream only I could see, in and around
the duos.   It wasn’t lonely at
all—more like the magic of being the blood traveling between the
cells.  
    I can be in a room full of pairs, be alone, and not be
lonely.   I can be connected in
exactly the way I choose, and find welcome.  
    I knew that before the other night—but this time, my
DNA got it.
    The awesomesauce of friends.   I am so freaking fortunate—and I
know it.   I have good friends who
offer me cuddles and intimate conversation and the joyous pleasure of being
seen and appreciated for who I am in this moment or this day or this decade.
    And before you think I’m one of those lucky people who has
spent the last decade surrounded by a luscious tribe of people who care about
me and who came together to create a soft landing when my marriage exploded…
not so much.
    We’d just moved.   Away from all my peeps, those of us who had survived the early years of
childrearing and sleepless nights together and who stood brave and teary-eyed
as the kindergarten teacher waved good-bye and closed the classroom door.   It was a big loss when we moved, even if
I’m honest and say that I felt more like a satellite
in that solar system than a major planet.   People liked me, and I liked them—but our shared lives held us
together more than anything.   Some
of my closest friends were online, one of the many quiet consequences of being
an exhausted introvert.
    When we moved, I’d resolved to find community on the
ground.   Real-life
friends, not virtual ones.   People I bonded with because we liked each other, rather than because we
shared kids of approximately the same age.
    I’d made some good beginnings.   And then, four months after the