Reflections on Being Single for the First Time in my Adult Life

Photograph is yours truly by the lovely Rachel Renee

I don’t know if you know this, but I actually met my high school sweetheart in the 5th grade - and I married him at 18 years old. We swore up and down we meant our vows and that we wouldn’t end up like our parents… but time is a funny thing, and by the time I was 22, I’d moved out to the Oregon coast on my own. Just a couple months later, I’d fallen in love with someone new and my divorce took place quietly in the background.

We swore we wouldn’t end up like our parents, and yet…

I’m 26 now and that second love has run its course, traveled all over the world, and come to a painful, shattering end. And what did I do, but dive right into a third grand romance? Until I found myself longing to return to the coast I love and realized: I have never in my adult life been my own person.

I’m just a couple weeks single now, for the first time since I was 14 years old… but my mind embraces change quickly.

(It just dawned on me, I’m the same age as Belle in the original Beauty and the Beast - the fairytale I just wrote a continuation of and am in the process of publishing. It’s called Crystal Belle and it has strong LGBTQ+ elements, you can find out more about that here.)

So, what is it like finally being single?

Well, if I’m honest, it was a messy beginning - but the messy part was mercifully brief. For a couple days, I was in an emotional panic. I grasped at straws, searching for someone to love and hold onto, someone to contort my entire being for because I felt naked and hopeless with nothing to live for.

At the same time, I felt disgusted by my little drama and inability to just be on my own. I want to be “a strong, independent woman,” so why did I feel such a strong need to exist for a lover? Why did it feel like there was no point to living if I was only living for myself? I’ve jumped from one relationship to the next… one infatuation to another like it was no big deal.

The cycle stopped when I wanted someone I couldn’t be with.

I’ve never had an experience of wanting one person and only one. Not because my feelings weren’t genuine - there was just always something to admire in someone else and I found it easy to water seeds of admiration I’d subconsciously planted in other people. (Does that make sense?) I don’t think it was ever intentional, more of survival tactic going on in my mind behind the scenes. I remember a time in college when I wished so desperately that there could be two of me, because I so loved my husband and wanted to be the best wife to him, and at the same time I felt so strongly for a boy I’d known just as long, who was so alone in the world and longing to be loved. 19 year old me felt like she could make both of them so happy, and it was torture that it wasn’t socially acceptable.

Now I see what they mean about a bleeding heart…

And I see how it wasn’t real. I’m not sure if it was the experience of not being able to be with this latest love interest, or if it was just finally time for me to slow down, but once I realized I wasn’t going to get to share my life with the person of my fancy, the frenzied search for the next arms I’d fall into came to an abrupt stop… and so did my desire to fill the space in every aching heart I came across.

I no longer crave hugs constantly (this was a painful, scary thing to feel such a deep need for, it was all-consuming at times, like an addiction). I don’t long for a body beside me at night anymore. I feel content to be alone, and I’d actually rather not have someone come and disturb this calm, grounded peace I am experiencing for the first time.

Shouldn’t I be in tortured angst over not being able to have the one I want?

I wondered that a couple times… this sense of peace and groundedness is not at all what I expected when my frenzied search for the next love in my life came to a pause.

This is the first time I’ve ever felt like “if I can’t be with this person, then I don’t want to be with anyone.”

And it isn’t with the energy of a tantrum - I’m not tortured every day singing “Teardrops on my Guitar” about it. I get to have this person in my life as a friend, and that’s actually just perfect. I feel like I’ve been given exactly what I’ve been praying for, and my reaction has been a calm feeling… a sense of peace and relief.

I think this is my first time having a real standard for who I would allow into my most private life, and that’s where the peaceful feeling came from… I value the peace, I treasure the sense of home, I’m grateful for it and I have a sense of duty to take care of it.

I have faith in time and the way things unfold in the world for me…

I feel grateful to know somebody who was able to inspire some boundaries and standards I didn’t have before - someone to provide such beautiful contrast between what I’ve been opening my heart wide up to and what I truly want and need for my life.

For so long, I’ve looked at relationships as what I could do for others…

Bending myself and shifting my beliefs, needs, and desires just to make someone else more comfortable in times when they were not doing the same for me, or not to nearly half the extent that I was. I’ve looked for reasons to put my own needs and desires aside and focus solely on being of loving service to someone else.

Now I’m recognizing that my desires are important too, and I don’t have to contort my entire being and toss my comfort out the window in order to love and be loved.

This one’s for me.

As uncomfortable as it may be, I’m dedicating this chapter of my life to getting to know my needs and desires more intimately, learning to nurture my own sense of fulfillment without relying on admiration and validation from others to give me a temporary sense of self-worth, and becoming the kind of person who is able to both give and receive.

I’m growing deeper friendships, connecting differently with my family, making peace with past wounds, and savoring the sense of independence and accomplishment as I achieve one small goal after another on the path to building a home in my own heart, and in the beautiful little town I’ve decided to put roots down in.

To my newly or torturedly single friends and readers, I hope this pondering has been helpful. I hope you find your peace and vibrancy again.

I also want you to know I did not go on and live out the entirety of this post. I went ahead and sabotaged / dishonored a thing or two and caught myself wondering “hmmm, where did that resolve I had go?” We’re all human here. You’re doing just fine.