Independence is not only overrated, it isn’t really possible. Think about it. What can you exactly do or achieve without any help or input of any kind from anyone. Whom among us is really an island? Self-sufficient in the Jeremiah Johnson tradition? 

As a newly widowed woman I was constantly being harangued by other widowed people to “learn to be alone”. No one really understood that I started there. Alone. I was the one who made all the decisions, did all the work, and did it with no input from my late husband throughout his entire illness. He would have supported me if he could, but his dementia made that impossible. I was already alone when I became a widow. And though I have offended people with my views on being alone, single and “independent” before……it’s not quantum physics. 

Many people don’t do alone very well. Not because it is difficult but because it is lonely, and that is the problem. People confuse their innate dislike of enforced loneliness with an inability to be alone. Being alone is easy for anyone if it is for a finite period but alone without seeming end is another matter. Widows who have been married for long periods of time, especially if they married young, seem to have the most difficult time adjusting to a singular existence. Female widows in particular will take up a pseudo-feminist stance which, I think, stops somewhat short of bra burning and going commando, and proclaim loudly and often of the joys of making decisions without consult and having a closet all to themselves. While I don’t disagree about the closet (and even though I love Rob and my daughter I wouldn’t mind a bathroom all to myself either), having no one who you care enough about to bounce ideas off of or who to point out the holes in your logic or beam at you in wonder when you are particularly brilliant isn’t worth the joy of walking through the house naked while you are getting ready for the day or eating whenever/whatever you want for dinner. Truthfully, I can walk around naked now (as long as the kids aren’t home or are in bed for the night) and even a planned dinner menu is worth it when there is someone to talk to while you eat.

Independence is knowing your own mind and not being afraid to verbalize it. It is not knowing what you want and being supported while you look for it. Some people have never had this and I understand that, but it is a fallacy to believe that being alone and independence are the same thing because independence isn’t about being on your own. It’s about having the security to be yourself.