Photo courtesy of Emily Lodish

I cannot hang my wall decal. I cannot do it by myself. I have tried. My wall decal—or, as my mother calls it, the “wall stickery thing”—is pretty sweet. It depicts little birdies sitting on a telephone wire and it mimics the shape of what I call my swooning couch, but which is actually a daybed.

I would like this decal on my wall very much, but it is too long—105 inches to be exact—and it comes in two parts and every time I try to stick it up there, I fall off the couch.

I need help. I realize this is not an earth-shattering realization, but it is what’s on my mind this week, as I gaze at the place on the wall where the decal should be.

I love living alone. I love turning the music up and doing stupid things around the house that is my house. It has made me giddy at times, that feeling. Of owning—well, renting—and defining my own space. Collecting dust bunnies and rearranging my votives. Beholden to no one in my sweatpants.

I relish the freedom to fall asleep wherever I want and then wake up to the theme song from COPS, walk around naked and over to the fridge where I open the door and the sight of a sprouting onion makes me gasp.

I meant to finish that onion, make some soup or something, but I didn’t get to it in time and I didn’t have anyone to share it with. When I Google “sprouting onion” to see how bad it really is, I learn that I can’t die from such a thing but that I can get very sick.

Living alone is full of tiny highs and lows, primarily I think because there isn’t anyone around to diffuse things. To chat away the milk gone sour or the moldy loaf of bread. You are forced to confront that loaf and listen to what it has to say. No man is an island, says the loaf. Go find yourself some friends.

Things are more vivid, but also more out of whack. I once woke in the middle of the night in Cambodia, convinced there was someone in the room. Using a bolster as a weapon, I swung at shadows until I’d hit every wall, and collapsed in a heap on the bed. Needless to say, I was alone that night.

You can’t deny the realities of living alone. You’ve got to ride them like a wave. Feel like a rock star when you manage to hang an enormous picture on the wall, and then stand back to behold its tilted glory.

There was the time not so long ago when I fell on my ass in the snow while trying to unload a 70 lb. rug from the trunk of my Honda. Except for Raphael, the mechanic across the street who witnessed my humiliation and who I can no longer look quite straight in the eye, I thought I had put that experience behind me.

More than that, I thought I had overcome that experience. Because, see, I won. I got that rug into my apartment and then I bought a rug pad (which I highly recommend—total game-changer) and I have since spent a lot of time relishing my victory.

The rug debacle became a symbol for my single womandom: If I am willing to sweat, curse, and publicly embarrass myself, I can and will come out on top.

But for every rug triumph, there is a wall decal. Show me the woman who can hang that thing herself. I will marvel at her wingspan and crown her queen of Neverland.

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