And then, she thought, I shall get older

"She could take an apartment by herself in the Village. She would meet new people. She would entertain. But, she thought, if I have people for cocktails, there will always come the moment when they have to leave, and I will be alone and have to pretend to have another engagement in order to save embarrassment. If I have them to dinner, it will be the same thing, but at least I will not have to pretend to have an engagement. I shall give dinners. Then, she thought, there will be the cocktail parties, and, if I go alone, I shall always stay a little too late, hoping that a young man or even a party of people will ask me to dinner. And if I fail, if no one asks me, I shall have the ignominy of walking out alone, trying to look as if I had somewhere to go. Then there will be the evenings at home with a good book when there will be no reason at all for going to bed, and I shall perhaps sit up all night. And the mornings when there will be no point in getting up, and I shall perhaps stay in bed till dinnertime. There will be the dinners in tea rooms with other unmarried women, tea rooms because women alone look conspicuous and forlorn in good restaurants. And then, she thought, I shall get older." Mary McCarthy, "Cruel and Barbarous Treatment"

I read this story on the plane back from Edinburgh, and was startled by how perfectly this passage encapsulated all of my fears regarding the upcoming year. I am excited to be alone, and I'm proud to be alone--there is something about it that's thrilling and freeing, especially in the face of friends who've hurt you. But there is still that uneasiness, especially when I consider those dark winter months, and the omnipresent possibility that, perhaps, I shall always be alone.