Friday, Jul. 11, 2003 | 1:09 PM

In the past year I have learned how to be independent in so many ways. And I can trace all of that to having lived by myself. I�ve said it before and I�ll say it again�it was the single best decision I have ever made in my entire life. I needed so badly to disengage from depending on other people for happiness and figure out who I am, what I want out of life, and what my goals are. In the past, every single living situation I�ve had, regardless of how positive it may have been in certain respects, regardless of how much friendship the co-habitation may have engendered, always contained a serious element of codependence. I had never learned emotionally to rely on myself. I had never learned what I wanted, what I was comfortable with, and what my own boundaries were because I was always so keyed into what other people wanted, and I either capitulated to or rebelled against them. I defined myself in relation to others, and most specifically to the people with whom I shared a home. This issue of defining myself in relation to others is still an problem for me, although I have come about a million miles with it. It�s still something I�m working on�I am most definitely not out of the dark yet.

But before I moved into my own home, my entire psychic universe centered around the psychodrama of the quasi-family unit (eg�roommates)�hell I wrote a sixty something part saga about all the homes I�ve lived in and the relationships I had with those who shared these homes. In every roommate, I was looking for a family, a source of support, unconditional love. What I needed was to learn how to support myself.

And I did. Making the decision to live all alone, and then the subsequent events that fell like dominos in accordance with that decision, turned me inside out and all around and into a far better stronger human being.

That is, in every way but one.

Can you guess which way I�m talking about?

Yes�money.

Now, prior to living here I was doing OK�I was slip shodding by. I didn�t ever bounce checks. I paid rent on time every month. I never borrowed money from anyone. But I also wasn�t particularly cognizant about things�only as cognizant as I needed to be. I paid minimums. I had ten dollars left at the end of every pay cycle.

And that�s what I continued to attempt to do while living here. And of course, with my rent costing more than half of my net paycheck, and my bills equaling another quarter or so, that just wasn�t possible. I knew that to some extent, and I did my best to juggle things. But I didn�t step up my level of vigilance. Why?

Two reasons. 1) I didn�t really know how. 2) I didn�t really want to.

Why didn�t I want to? Because for the very first time I felt independent and in control of my own destiny. For years I felt at the mercy of other people�s choices, felt like I had no control over how things happened. Felt like my life was on hold based on what others chose to do�if life was a chess game, I was playing defensively. For years I waited and waited and waited (because I saw myself as being helpless and less than and not good enough.) For years I made sacrifices that were selfish at core. I had become a brittle martyr by the time I moved out on my own. I had wasted so much time attempting to turn others into people they could not be and never wanted to be.

Finally I was actually having fun. I was the person I had been before and so much more than that. Finally I felt like I could do anything I wanted. And I didn�t want to give up anything. I wanted to live it up. I wanted to go out on the town. I wanted to have a blast. Kinda like the good little girl who�s school marm straight in high school and then goes hog wild when she gets to college.

I was fucking sick of sacrificing. So I didn�t.

Is that good? Is that bad? I don�t know. I feel like shit about it. And part of me feels like it was ethics be damned, something I had to do. It was a natural progression of all of the pain and sadness I had felt. It was, to be new agey, part of my own personal healing process. Which in now way changes the amount of pain I feel at having made decisions that have hurt someone else.

I think most people feel similarly when the decisions we make have a detrimental effect on others and we realize it.

Now, I am dealing with it. Because I am staring the hard numbers reality of it in the face.

That�s a theme in my life, you know�being forced to deal. Being in situations (often of my own doing) where I absolutely positively HAVE TO deal with something. And being made to deal, I�ve gone through more drastic transformations in my 26 years than most people go through in a lifetime. I�m not tooting my own horn here�it�s just the way it is. And so, oddly enough, I am glad right now. Glad although terrified. Because I would have slipped along forever not really looking at my financial picture, paying minimums, and slip shodding by until the day I die if it wasn�t put in my face that I have to deal with this.

And I wouldn�t have dealt with it most likely, if it wasn�t hurting someone else.

I have to make some decisions. HAVING to make decisions is my blessing and my curse.

Though I am afraid, I feel strong in a way that I have never felt when going through a crisis like this�that I can get through this.

Will I continue to live alone? I don�t know�it depends on what happens over the next couple of weeks. It depends on a lot of things. Am I sorry that I have lived alone for this past year? Absolutely 100% not. If I am driven into the poor house I won�t be sorry. I wouldn�t have had it any other way.