For the first time in my life I am without a man.  I am without a man, a lover, a companion, a husband.  It has been a year since I felt the soft caresses and heard the utterances of love.  It has been a year, yet, I do not miss it.  I am, unperceivably and unpredictably, content and for once in my life, I am enough, not wanting, not needing, but enough.

Contentment, so rich, so new, it wants savoring.  I am drinking it in, present in my oneness, my wholeness.  For the first time, I utter the words, “ I am not ready to date, still transitioning,” and “I don’t want to date when I am fresh in my loneliness,” and “I want to  be settled first, not wanting to soothe this pain with men.”

For so many years I used men as salve, as bandages, as shields covering old scars and wounds.  I needed them in constant flow, unwilling, unable to look at those wounds. But now, after years of hard labor, I have stumbled on worthiness and enoughness.

So, I wait.  I wait and I discover new joys, joys of solitude, of stillness, of quiet.  I savor whole weekends without conversations, without commitments, without compromise.  I devote more time to my pets, writing, long walks, reading, making only food I love.  I devote time to making friends with this new territory, this new-found freedom, finding joys and peace hardly imagined.

The journey of solitude has been my greatest gift to myself, but I fear something is shifting.  I find myself now wondering what kind of man I will meet in my enoughness.  What kind of man will love someone worthy of love, someone already complete.  I find a small joy in imagining, this, wonderment being enough.

Now, as I walk through my home, the scent of man tickling my nose, bringing back the memory of a hand on my back, whispers on my neck, the want in my heart, I wonder if I am ready.  I take a deep breath, breath it in, the man scent, the smoke of it curling through my body.  I hover, over the leaflets from the Macys flyer, opened and scattered across my counter, filling my house with the sweet scent of man, taking it all in and wondering if it is time.  Oh, Macys, you have stirred the beast