Being Single Doesn’t Bother Me (As Much) As It Used To
Here is a very long list of things that help me live in the present, hopeful and less afraid.
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It was only a few short hours ago that I discovered that my ex-boyfriend, with whom I had broken up less than a year ago, had apparently very recently gotten married. I have been overtaken by shock and incredulity and I feel confused and blindsided.
There’s more to that story (He just called me two weeks ago to wish me happy birthday…he invited me over to his place two months ago…how the hell did he find someone so quickly — in a pandemic?!), but that’s not the story I want to tell. The more important story is how and why this hasn’t knocked me out. The story I want to tell is how I got over.
I knew this day would come eventually, but I didn’t know that today would be the day, and I thought that he would at least “soft launch” his new girlfriend or mention her in our periodic conversations so that I could be primed and prepared for my inevitable pain.
You see I am hurting, but I note that it doesn’t hurt like I thought it would. It stings, but I spent about ten minutes crying. I ended up encouraging the single friend who called to encourage me. There is no searing pain or crumpling into a hopeless heap of pity like I had anticipated I would. I didn’t compare myself to his wife (it’s so weird to write that word) like I thought I would. I’m — inexplicably — okay, limping, bleeding, wounded, but okay, and I think it’s due to a few things I’ve learned over the 33 out of 34 years of my life that I’ve been single.
It’s 4 am in the morning and I cannot sleep, those photos I saw earlier circulating in the cinema of my mind. I’ve had this message in drafts for the longest time, and since I needed a cup of comfort, here is me taking a sip of the medicine I’ve concocted through experience and sharing it with you, in case you too may need it. (It’s long — apologies in advance. Medium lets you listen to stories now [see button above] and sometimes the long articles are precisely what you need.)
Being single used to really, really, really bother me, and in years past, I’ve spent a lot of time crying out to God, feeling incredibly out of place, lonely, embarrassed…
