Wholes and Halves, Parts and Completes.

For many things, one is sufficient.  A spare tire, say, or a mother-in-law, or a toothbrush.  For others, though, two is best.  There are times when just one is lonely; is sad; is just plain inadequate.

Sometimes I feel like my life is a bad 7th Heaven episode, when the underlying theme is painfully and palpably obvious from the outset, carries through to every aspect.  The hour will end with some cheesy lesson and consequent change. 

This week in the life of magda, the theme is “one is the loneliest number: studies in why being one half of an absent pair can really suck sometimes.”

It started when my boss sent our associate editor to San Francisco. This was a trip that I wanted and that she should have had, but, like most things, began as a trip he assigned himself (inner monologue: asshole). Familial obligations intervened for him (hey, it happens when you’ve sired SIX offspring, several illegitimate), and he ended up sending her.  At the last second, he added a totally heinous hades twist by piggy-backing a Dallas conference into her “layover.” (Asshole encore).  She’s doing a tremendous job.

She’s like my little sister, our associate. She’s fantastic, and while I know this week’s been hard for her, things haven’t exactly been peachy back in these parts, either. The work raining down on me? No fun.

I came home last night, made macaroni and cheese, and got into my pajamas in front of a movie.  No roommate to cramp my space or use the TV, no boyfriend to angst over my non-nutritious choices, no children needing shuttling to after-school activities.  It was peace for an hour or two.

Then, realizing I was low on so many staples (hi, I was eating macaroni and cheese), I got inspired and went to Costco. Costco is a hard place to be just a one, just a single girl pushing a cart in a fight for herself.  I did have a good time cruising the aisles for the usuals—I have this thing for going down every row, even when I don’t think I need anything there.  I forget that I want things, you know.  As much as I added, though, and as many exciting things as found, I couldn’t oust the loneliness that is shopping For One.  No one to help me with the heavy things.  No one to discourage me from the industrial-sized nutella (in a twin-pack!). No one to laugh at me when OF COURSE I picked the one cart with defective front wheels.

Costco, or at least the Virginia version thereof, is the penultimate experience of why being friendless and alone is possibly the worst condition Ever In The World, period.  I grew up in Costco’s homeland, where the checkers were friendly and boxed things for you, and where I was always flanked by my parents, and usually a sister or two.  Many hands make light the work, or something.  Last night, it was girl versus shopping cart, smack-down style.  I’m just not all that coordinated when it comes to presenting my membership; loading my own cart; paying; departing.  They had no boxes, and no cart-packers.  The clerk yelled at me to get my things–and it’s not like there were all that many–out of the way fast enough for the next customer.  I’m just one person!  I can’t move this fast!  Send help!  I felt like yelling.  Instead, my eyes just welled and, blurred vision notwithstanding, I hurriedly maneuvered the night’s catch out into the dark air. Air that was warm; I opened the sunroof on the way home, for the first time this season. It was magic, enjoyed au solitaire.

As the cherry on top, I had my eyes checked after work today.  I noticed at the shooting range on Sunday that my right eye’s distance-sight is a bit blurry (and for the record, this is not advisable: to realize, “hey, I can’t see straight!” while holding a loaded weapon.  Only me). Needless to say, I shot with my left eye.

Come to find out, my left eye is perfect—but the right’s just not cooperating.  In fact, it isn’t doing much of anything at all.  It’s just there, hanging out, waiting to be called upon but not really putting out any effort. 

My new eye doctor had me look through little 3D glasses at a book.  Except I didn’t see 3D.  He asked me to identify the contents of a box on the page, and all I saw was an L.  Closing my left eye, an R appeared.  R, L. R, L, but never together.   Actually, thinking on it now, this might explain my extremely tragic sense of space.  I run into walls.  I have serious parking issues.  It’s just like that.  Or is it?

Medical benefits plus $300 later, I picked out some truly adorable glasses: nothing more than tempered plastic in the left lens, a prescription in the right to help my little troublemaker joint the class.  “As a precaution,” the kind doctor said, but all I heard was “yup, you’re getting old.” 

In all fairness, there are some real perks to being but a one.  The monstrous chocolate milkshake here to the right of my keyboard, for instance, and the blender that will likely remain in the sink until tomorrow. The freedom to wear jeans in the office every day, because you’ll be holed up there from dawn to dusk anyhow and there’s no one really there to notice.  To have the uninhibited schedule to go where I want, and buy what I want, when I want. I like the freedom of coming and going, existing for no one but me.

Still, though, despite the cost, and the emotion, and the compromise? It’s tough to beat two parts together.  Certainly something worth working towards.