I have almost always been single. Perhaps, there's the occasional season where I find myself trapped in an arrangement of sorts with someone, and said arrangement can be called a "relationship" by some. But, at the end of the day, I have built my world around no one but myself.
Which is why I find some of my friends silly. I know people who can't exist without a significant other. It's like the very fabric of reality that gives them consistency is shred when they're not tied to someone else. Like they exist only through some transitive property of existence which depends on their current paramour.
Anyway, so, point is: I'm single, always have been, and I'm good with it.
Except, I went to the hospital alone the other day. I've been suffering through some stomach pains lately. I thought I had finally caught amoebiasis from the fishball peddler who drop by every afternoon to enable us into stuffing our faces with his fried food stuff. Doctor said it's because I've been drinking too many coffee, and getting myself stressed out.
I have been medically advised to avoid stress. I wonder how far I can take that in the office, so I asked the doctor to write that in the prescription: "Avoid stress, like working after 6 pm", but she thought I was kidding.
Anyway, while waiting for the nurse to discharge me, I couldn't help but overhear the conversations of the other patients around me. Like, there was this old guy talking to his son/daughter on the phone, and they were arguing about where to get the money for the appendectomy needed to save the old guy's life.
It was at that moment that the triage nurse's comment came back to haunt me: "No companion, sir?"
Sometimes, when one's mortality is in question, people couldn't help but have some expectations. Such as, "who would be there when I leave this world?" And at that moment, as I surf Facebook alone on my hospital bed at the emergency room, I realized that I built myself so strong that I had no need for anyone else to be there.
But others do.
For others, leaving this world alone is a scary thought. They need to comfort of family and friends to hold their hands, and tell them things will get better, and it's always not as bad as you think.
And for some, the government is denying them this right.
As long as the government (and some small minded individuals) refuse to acknowledge that there is a need to redefine what constitutes a family, we will be denying people the most basic of human right:
To live and die as a human person. To spend's one life with a mate of one's choosing. To enter a social, legal, and binding contract with another person to spend their lives together for better or for worse.
The thing is, the people against the legalization of same sex marriages GET NOTHING from stopping it. Which is something I really, really, really do not understand. What do you get from stopping two people from spending their lives together?
See, I love being alone. I get to do a lot with my time. As a writer, I cherish every moment I can spend away from the real world and immersed in the ones I've created for my characters.
But loneliness shouldn't be something one enforces on other. It's their business, not yours.
Let her kiss the bride. Let him take his man home to mom. The world can be an amazing place, if we would let it.
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