Songs sung solo

Does sharing an experience make it sweeter, deeper, more meaningful?

When I was part of a bonded pair, when I had Tom, I never really thought about this. So very many experiences were shared—not just the dailiness of life but the epic Pacific to Atlantic camping trip, the Canada to Mexico camping trip, all those European adventures, those months in Crete, the miles we put on exploring Tallin and Riga, getting hopelessly dangerously lost in Istanbul, that magical week and a half in Iceland, that trip to Costa Rica, our last, when Tom was between chemo infusions. But we also took many solo trips, some for research or work, others because we enjoyed different things, had different interests, because we needed a break from each other, because really I don’t know why. We just did.

When I was by myself traveling in central and eastern Europe, when I was invited to spend time in Doha, when I ventured several times to Mexico, I didn’t wonder if I was missing something by being alone. I chose to be alone. I wanted to be alone. I needed to be alone. And I knew, upon my return, someone was there to welcome me home and listen to my stories. Thus, some of those solo experiences were, indeed, shared—in the telling if not in the moment.

Now there is no one sitting at home wondering how or what I’m doing. There’s no one waiting for my stories. Out and about, when I see something—that orange-ringed headless snake on the hiking trail yesterday, that inky storm cloud taking up half the sky this morning—I don’t say to myself I can’t wait to tell Tom about this.

You would think this makes me sad.

But this is not a sad story. Do I wish he were still alive? Of course I do. But his not being here, his not being available to share random moments of discovery or beauty, weirdness, humor, disgust, whatever, means I stay in those moments longer. I inhabit them rather than immediately make stories out of them to share. And so, in this way, the lack of the option to share an experience deepens, sweetens, and makes more meaningful that experience.

This is what I tell myself.