You may have noticed that I haven’t been writing much in the last few months. The last year really. It was one of the more challenging ones for me, both personally and professionally. In fact, it roused some pretty terrifying insecurities that I’ve likely harbored most of my adult life, but have felt were much more dormant in the last few years. It turns out, when you’re feeling insecure, it’s way less fun to write about on the internet than when you feel like you’ve got all your ducks in a row :) 

But here I am, talkin’ about my jagged little line of ducks. To be totally honest, the last year had me scared to see myself take such big steps backward in what felt like a linear progression toward a mindful, peaceful existence. Especially since I started this blog. Part of me felt like a fraud, trying to write anything under the guise of “positivity” or “happiness” this last few months , when I was so utterly devastated and broken-feeling at points. 

But that’s what challenges in life do to us - they test our balance, our resolve, our training. And I really hope that by opening up here, I can make someone else feel a little less alone in their non-linear, totally acceptable, messy journey. 

Positive psychology for me has been something of a training ground for the inevitable lows of life. I reflect on my childhood with a word that I can now name, but could not at the time: anxiety. I was not a happy-go-lucky, carefree child. From my earliest memories, I worried that my parents were going to get a divorce, and/or I was going to be kidnapped from my room while I slept. I think I struggled with low-level depression as a young adult; I don’t know if this was due to having seasonal affective disorder growing up in the rainiest state in the country or me being a highly sensitive person and somehow always taking on the heaviness of life. But I believe my interest in positive psychology is almost exclusively fueled by these formative years of feeling heavy and anxious.

I also remember that, as early as middle school, romantic relationships lit up my world like a light in a dark room. Keep in mind that I’ve lived a very good life by most standards: stable family life, good schools that I easily excelled in, plenty of friends, access to hobbies and any opportunity that I wanted to go after. My life should have never felt like a dark room, and yet, I’ve always felt myself most alive, most online - sparkling - when shining under the light of a partner’s affection. 

I think it’s really easy for women to feel this way, in between media depictions of feminine ideals and generally disengaged father figures. But I feel ashamed for some reason. Like I’ve somehow failed to build a secure enough sense of self to only need what I’m offering to me and nothing else. Like it’s my fault, like I am deficient for not loving myself enough to desire to be alone. 

Alongside the shame, I feel jealousy. Jealousy for the women that seem to possess a bone-deep understanding of their worth and value, and thus float effortlessly in a well of patience, certain that love will come to them when it’s ready. I, on the other hand, have always felt an intense need to orchestrate situations and manipulate reality such that love will be forced to stop in its tracks and stick around.

This emotional experience has something like defined my life, and thank god, I’m finally working through it with my therapist. It’s hard to put into words what therapy has done for me in the last six months; allowing me to talk through the scripts that have been running through my head for what feels like a lifetime, slowly starting to erase and write new ones. But there’s still so much work to be done.

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I’ve been single for a little over six months now. You can imagine all of the psychological quandaries this has been bringing up. But finally, on a lot of days now, I feel good. Happy. Whole, even.   

I try to remember how big of an accomplishment that is for me. I genuinely believe that I have an incredible life, and I’m proud of the fact that I orchestrated much of it for myself. It’s a matter of giving myself the daily affirmations that I seem to crave so deeply from others - you’re a good person. You made your dreams happen and you’ll continue to. You’re beautiful. But I’d be lying to myself and this community if I didn’t share some of the difficulties that I continue to need to make space for in my own journey. 

I did not immediately become the empowered woman I foresaw in the month preceding my breakup. I did not (as I thought I would) take all of my newly regained time and energy and focus it squarely on myself and my passions and making connections in communities that resonated with me. I crumbled, to be honest, more painfully than I could have ever imagined.

What this experience has ultimately made me realize is that there was so much unresolved work that I left on the table when I got into my last relationship. I had just started plumbing my inner world and asking who I wanted to be in my life when someone came along and made me feel like I had it all figured out. Like I had the love I always wanted. 

Perhaps had I stayed in that relationship for the rest of my life, this would have never been an issue. But I believe there is such intrinsic value in knowing - particularly as a woman - how fundamentally okay you are and how happy you can be outside of a relationship, if not only such that you can hold out for the one that truly fits and compliments your life like no other. As much as I have always wanted to be in an ecstatic, beautiful, loving partnership, I have perhaps always wanted more to feel completely filled up by MY life alone.

I am getting there, ever so slowly. It’s a long, confusing, and often harrowing journey. But it’s rewarding. Some days feel warm and honied with my affection for my own life. Some days feel like an empty metal box that I’m rattling around in. I feel secure and anchored in my place in the world, but I wonder constantly about my worth as someone’s partner. Most days, I think I’d love to be with me. The work is in continuously reminding myself that I can be awesome and not for everyone, at the same time.

It’s a constant push and pull that I’m trying to make space for on both sides. I’m trying to sit quietly with sadness and rejection and let them be there without freaking out or reading something bigger into the emotions. I’ve been reading healing spiritual books, like The Untethered Soul and When Things Fall Apart. The words within really help bring me back to a place of openness and softness. 

I am six months single, and I am still working on becoming the strong/flaming/independent woman crushing the world with her fierceness of spirit. I really need to say that here, because I started this blog to share vulnerability and make others feel less alone. You might be in a similar space, even if you’ve been single for years. That’s ok. You can make space for that too, while also throwing yourself headfirst into the work it takes to progress toward the life you’ve always wanted. For me, that is a life of contentedness and joy. I have faith that a partner is written in my story, but perhaps they’re just part of the journey, rather than the destination.