Brokeback Mountain Reminded Me, I Don’t Want To Be Alone

In rewatching Brokeback Mountain for the first time, in what must be about 15 years, I came to a realisation. I don’t want to be alone. One of the most tragic romance stories on film, where a couple meet in secret to be with one another, stealing moments and hiding memories, filled my heart with a desire I thought I didn’t have.

Ennis and Jack weren’t able to be together, to have a life with one another. In the end this meant that all Ennis had were his memories of their time together. and a bloody set of shirts. He lived alone in a small caravan in the middle of nowhere, alone. I can imagine that there must have been times, as he lay down in the dark, or sat with a whiskey under the stars, what could have been had he taken the risk and started a farm with Jack.

What I take most from Brokeback Mountain is not the pain and hurt, the struggle of their lives and the difficulties of keeping their marriages going while lying to their wives. It was the pure comfort that they felt when they had each other to hold. It was the simplicity of their love.

When I look back on my life, I don’t only want to have the memories of the romances and sexual encounters of my late teens and early twenties. I’m thirty-one now and I’ve been single and haven’t had sex with anyone in years. It hasn’t always bothered me because I’ve taken the approach that romance will find me. That when the time is right, someone will appear and we’ll begin our lives together. Which isn’t to say I’ve been entirely complacent. I’ve tried to date here and there. But I think I’ve always held onto the idea that if it doesn’t happen, then maybe it isn’t meant to be for me. I don’t feel that way now.

I’ve realised that I don’t want to be alone. And that in order for me to find someone I’m really going to have to look for them. It’s awful timing really since the pandemic is still going and lockdown continues to be in effect. I can’t date now without taking, what I think is, an unfair risk.

Still, when it is safe to do so, I’m going to go out into the world and try to find my person. I’m going to make more memories, so that even if I don’t have a great, long lasting love, at least I’ll have tried. At least I’ll know that I wasn’t waiting for it to happen and missing the opportunities by believing that I didn’t need to have a partner to share my life with. I think I needed to give myself permission to not have to be alone.