My Own Man

A year or so after the death of my long time partner Jack some of my friends began to tell me that they saw a change in me, that I had "come into my own". As I looked into my mirror I could see no visible signs of change and felt no inner difference, only perhaps loneliness.

I have always been my own man I said to one friend, maybe you are just seeing me for the first time because now I stand alone.

It is funny how people perceive others. It is almost like there must be a label attached in order to make us real - Dr. Bob or Cousin Mary. Maybe they are a couple like Jack and Bob or Bob and Kay. Now there is a story line attached to our profile and we can be understood more easily, and categorized for future reference.

When I said "I stand alone" what I meant was as a single man. I don't think that we can ever stand alone entirely. There must always be another person that has added to our substance in order to make us the person that we are or have become - a mother, a father, your priest or Rabi, maybe it was a friend or possibly, and most intimately, your partner in life.

As I "stood alone" again for the first time, naked to the world it would seem, the person that others were seeing was me, but this time as the entity that I had assembled over decades; parts and pieces of life experiences that had come together like the Frankenstein monster to make me who I now am.

When I was with my partner we stood as Jack & Bob but now I am simply Bob. I think that perhaps we can sometimes be overlooked or overshadowed even, by our partners in life. Not that it really matters if you are a good fit. It is only when a separation occurs by life or death that the raw entities become visible.

I have always been a nurturer and as such a great believer in supporting friends and most especially my partners in everyway I can. What is a partnership if not an elaborate friendship. There must be love involved to make such a partnership work, a selfless love of another to achieve that oneness. To be one with another person is like no other feeling I have ever felt. It brings life to dead branches and song to deaf birds. It fills oceans with water and brings bloom to the deserts. There is no greater gift than to tell some one that you love them and to be so in love that you would gladly give you life for that person.

So I guess the answer to the question is yes, I am my own man, but only because I was another mans man first. Perhaps you didn't really know me then.