Alone

Is being alone always lonely?

I am a self-professed relationship addict. The past six months have been a practice of being alone - being single. Since I was 15 years old, I have had 5 serious relationships - the last relationship ending in February after almost five years. Being single is something that is quite new to me. Different. Strange. Liberating.

I think I have always been in relationships because I genuinely feared being alone. When I was pregnant with F, I felt that I couldn't raise him alone, that I needed J. I didn't. I don't. I can raise him alone. I can stand up on my own to feet. I can be alone.

Erasing the fear from the word alone hasn't been easy. Moving past the notion that any relationship was better than no relationship was even harder, but here I am: Alone. Sure, I have my friends and I have my family and I have F, but I'm single. On my own. And guess what? Sometimes, it's really hard.

Am I lonely? A little bit. I miss the intimacy of a relationship, that special bond that only you and your significant other share. Ironically, though, I am realizing I am less lonely now than I was in relationships. A good friend told me months ago that I would soon learn a lesson she too had to learn:

There is no loneliness as great as the loneliness of an unfulfilling, unhappy relationship.

 

Being alone is scary at first, but I didn't know how to be alone. I'm not even sure if I know how to be alone now. I hope I don't, to be honest, because this journey has taught me more about myself than anything else I have experienced in my life. And, moreover, I hope that I'm alone until I really do know how to be on my own, because otherwise, I think I'll be missing out on a really big chunk of happiness.

 

No one can own your happiness, it's all yours - and that is a beautiful thing!