Spinsters and Snails

After a night of serious rain last week I walked into the front garden and noticed two large, beautiful snails escaping the water-logged earth on low-lying branches of a bush.  Although we've had a lot of rain recently in my part of the world, they were the first snails I've seen all summer.  They reminded me of an obsession of mine - wondering where my true home is, because snails carry their home on their back.  Their home is wherever they go.

When I speak of "home," I'm not just referring to the edifice that I live in.  I'm talking about the place on the planet that makes me feel as if this is where I belong.  I've written about this issue on this little web of mine in the past, and the appearance of those two snails has got me thinking long and hard about it again.  I've lived in the same city for my entire adult life, and am certainly comfortable here because I'm so familiar with it, but I still don't feel as if it's my spiritual home.  I've visited other places that strike chords within me and make me feel as if I may have lived there before.  Unfortunately it's an experience that I can enjoy only momentarily because I've never been in a position to just up and move to what I thought was a perfect place for me.  Besides, much of what constitutes home is where I have ties to family and friends.  I can think of places I could be happy to live in right now were it not for the fact that I would be completely alone.  I love being alone, but only when I choose.  If I were to go someplace where I didn't know a soul, it would be very difficult for me to make meaningful, lasting friendships, mostly due to my deepening sense of privacy as I grow older.
Those snails helped me to come to terms with my sense of home.  I very much want to live alone, and I eventually I will again, but in the meantime, for financial reasons, I share a lovely home in a genteel part of a big city.  Although my living circumstances aren't perfect, I've noticed it gets easier for me to feel at home where I am the more I make adjustments.  Most of the adjustments are about me and my inner life, and not about where, how, and with whom I live.  The outer trappings of my life have been increasingly easier to accommodate as I feel more at peace with myself.
I don't think in terms of my city or my country.  But please don't get me wrong.  I'm blessed to live in a city and a country that are peaceful and prosperous relative to most of the inhabited world.  Oh yes, I'm deeply grateful for that.  News of world events and situations reminds me of my good fortune on a daily basis.  But I just don't feel I belong to a single person, place or thing, although sometimes I wish I did.  But that happens less and less as I learn to love myself.  And I'm grateful for that,too.
I know quite a few single women of around my vintage who still seek partners.  Let's face it, the older one gets, the harder it is to find a compatible partner, let alone a soul mate.  I've been pretty much alone most of my life, and the constant ache and longing ceased once I entered cronehood.  My libido dropped off the radar with the end of menopause - and with it my need for a mate.  That's probably what makes me most grateful.
When I was hormonal my perpetual search for a partner led me to some of the saddest and most pathetic places I've ever been, which is why I'm very glad to be post-menopausal.  No wonder many post-menopausal women with male partners take hormone replacement therapy.  It must present a real problem when they "don't feel like it."  Sorry, honey, I've got a headache for the rest of my life.  Yikes.  Anyway, I'm glad it's not my problem.
I'm a spinster, and proud of it.
The longer I live the more I feel at home with myself and my world, the whole world.
I'm not just getting older, I'm growing older.
And I'm going home.
- G.P.